Hesitant Facade
by Arcanee
Summary: Suki is sent out on a boring mission from her Superior; But will she end up becoming friends with the ones she was spying on? Maybe even a bit more than friends..? What happens when her past comes back to haunt her; Will she screw up the mission too?
1. New 'Team Members'

Nothing could be heard by any _normal_ ninja, everything was dead silent aside from the usual chirp of a bird or another animal. It was silent in the warm-sunny forest today, but silence sometimes lies, and there was in fact someone there lurking through the trees ever so quickly and efficiently silent. Only a few steps every few trees as she lunged through the forest towards her destination. She knew exactly what she had to do, but wasn't really very happy with it. Seeing as how she had just had one of her best friends killed, she wasn't in the best of moods; and now she had to do this stupid mission from one of her superiors..

She knew she was getting close, a bit too close for comfort.. She had already memorized the people she was going to meet and their abilities, one of them was a chakra sensor.. She stopped for a moment on a tree branch and put her thumb-nail to her lips, she shut her eyes for a split second, took a deep breath and opened them again. She had just hidden her chakra completely so she wouldn't be detected; now she had nothing to worry about but being seen.. Although none of them knew her anyway and wouldn't recognize her, it was still a precaution.

After about ten or so more minutes of non-stop travel, she decided she was close enough to keep an eye on them and still relax. She had just reached the gate of a small nearby town, there was no guards she had to get past to get in, and she didn't look suspicious anyway.. To an onlooker, she appeared to be the average kunoichi stopping by the village for rest. Although she had no headband on, no team members with her, and really didn't look tired at all. Her clothes weren't torn, so she hadn't been battling or in any fights today; at least not yet..

She was wearing a simple black tank-top styled shirt that seemed to have disconnected crimson-colored sleeves; They reached from below her shoulders down over her hands. Along with that, standard long black pants and simple shinobi-sandals that let her white-painted nails show through. She was standing at about 5'7-5'8 tall, and really didn't look like a threat to anyone. She wasn't stick-figure skinny, but she looked like a small girl, about age 17 or so..

She walked into the village as if she had nothing to hide, she stopped and took a breath of the crisp-air when something smelled simply delicious. She turned her head towards the scent and saw a nice little restaurant serving some good-looking chicken ramen; she decided it was time for a late lunch and headed inside the building. While she was busy waiting for her food to reach the table after she had ordered, someone else was busy waiting for the opportunity to approach her. She slouched down in her seat at the restaurant booth and closed her eyes as if just wanting to relax. When she opened her eyes someone was sitting in front of her scribbling something down in a book hurriedly..

"May I help you?" She glared at the male, a bit pissy at the sudden, and creepy way he was sitting there out of nowhere.. The male looked upward directly into her eyes with a big-creepy-smile plastered on his face. "So they are green!" He returned to writing in his book before a sharp pain in his foot made him yelp a loud cry of pain. She had stomped on his foot under the table out of anger, "Who are you and what the hell do you mean 'they are green'?" The females voice was stern and she wanted answers.. "Y-Your eyes, Ma'am! They're so beautiful, just like you!" He choked out the words while trying not to sob from the pain in his foot. She could see his struggle with speaking and released the pressure from his now-broken bone. "Not a good time to use a cheesy pickup line. You didn't answer my question; Now unless you want that other foot broken, I suggest you start talking." She had a serious look in her eyes, the male fought back tears from the pain surging up his leg and decided he should obey. "I'm a writer miss, I've been looking for the new star of my up coming book.. Its going to be about an exceptionally beautiful kunoichi falling in love with a small town writer! I've already started, see!"

He lifted his book which he had been scribbling in and began to read it aloud, "Her stunning emerald eyes shined like nothing I had ever seen; accompanied by shoulder length gorgeous black hair with the slightest bit of silver lining in the front made her look endlessly amazi-" Before he could finish reading the first line the female he had been reading to began cracking up laughing. "W-What's so funny!" The male shook with fear of her shattering the bones in his other foot because she didn't like the passage he wrote about her.

"Its just so stupid! Nobody really thinks that of anyone, love between people is a pure myth! Nothing lasts forever, and nobody is going to believe that complete bullshit." She giggled again, her laugh was mocking and made the mans heart shatter. "I guess I'll have to find another beautiful woman to write my book about then.. But miss, may I at least know your name to add to my rejection list?" The male began to sniffle as he tore the pages out of the book and crumpled them. "Suki." She stated bluntly and didn't seem to care that the man was so upset. "Last name?" He sniffled and looked up, but by the time he did, she had completely disappeared. "Wha-!" He sat there shocked and began to sob onto the crumpled pages of his book.

"Nn.. I'll have to eat later.. That distraction made my chakra flare up." Suki stood there outside the building mumbling to herself before doing the same thumb-to-lips sign as before to calm herself. Sadly it was already too late, her targets had probably noticed her.. Time for the second phase of the plan to take place, even if it was a bit sooner than she had hoped. She sighed and looked downward as everything around her seemed to go silent; she had begun to get lost in her thoughts.. _"I have to hang around the guy who disrespected Nii.. I'll get my revenge eventually, but this is not the time. This mission is important, I know they'll rip my head off if I fuck anything up.."_ Her thoughts were broken by a heart-shattering feeling she hadn't gotten in years. The scent of her brother was hanging in the air, had they just passed by here and not noticed her? This was a bad sign either way, this means her targets were already on the move again and she had to catch up.

"_This is so much trouble.. I'm chasing after the damn Uchiha-kid, and so is Konoha; but neither of them are supposed to know I'm here either._" She took off running through the village streets, careful not to bump into anyone on the way to avoid having to speak with anyone else. After a bit she noticed the scents had began to fade and split away, luckily unlike konoha, she knew who else the Uchiha was traveling with, and could simply follow the trail from one of them. She stopped for a minute just outside the village and stood there fumbling with a small book in her pocket. She held it up so she could read it and looked through a few pages. "Suigetsu.. Jugo, or Karin." She mumbled and looked at the pictures of the three that Sasuke was traveling with. "I guess I'll follow the female, she might be easier seeing as how most women wear perfume and other useless things.." She slid the book back into her pocket and took a deep breath of air, she could pick up all kinds of scents around her, but one stood out from the rest..

"Uhg.. Gross." She coughed and sighed, "That has to be her, she smells heavily like.. Flowers and sweat? ...What the hell." Suki shook her head and tried to follow the stench that would hopefully lead her to the target, Sasuke Uchiha. She had been sent on a mission to follow him and keep a close eye on everything they were doing. She knew it wouldn't be easy to get on his good side, but she also knew he would have to keep her around; because she wasn't leaving anyway.

"_Target within range._" She had only been traveling for a few minutes before the scent had grown extremely strong, meaning the female she was tracking was close by. Suki crouched down and made herself comfy sitting on a tree branch high above the ground. She leaned her back against the tree and relaxed. Her chakra-hiding technique faded away quickly after she did this, which was exactly her plan..

"Wait! Hold up!" Karin stopped suddenly and looked around with a horrified face. Sasuke turned to face her with the same emotionless expression as always. "What now?" He sighed at the time they were wasting with this little pause. "This chakra.. Its.. Amazing!" Karin made the same facial expression she did when she was lost in a sasuke-is-so-great-moment; which was shortly cut off by the snap of fingers in her face. "What the hell are you talking about?" Suigetsu snapped his fingers in the females face irritatedly at her non-existent explanation about the apparently 'awesome-chakra-source' near them.

Karin snapped back to reality and tried to look as serious as possible in front of her beloved Sasuke; "T-There is a huge amount of Chakra very close to us! But it doesn't seem to be moving, we might still be being followed.. What should we do!" She choked the words out nervously to the Uchiha, who still seemed uncaring about the situation. "Where?" He simply stated, he was still a bit injured from his battle earlier with the strong Akatsuki, and wasn't ready to fight another if that was the case.

"Its moving! Its.. Gone? What? Wait.. Its.. Right above us.. But how?" Karin blinked and looked upwards frantically for the source, Suigetsu already had one hand on his blade and Jugo was prepared for anything. To everyones surprise, nothing happened for a solid minute. "Karin are you just fucking with us? You know how pissed Sasuke is going to get for you wasting time! Right, Sasuke?" Suigetsu moved his hand away from the blade for a split second to insult the female when suddenly he felt it move and fall off his back. He turned quickly to see what happened and was surprised at what he saw..

"Well, just as expected. The **stench** was coming from right around here." Suki's voice was mocking as she stood holding Suigetsu's massive blade swung over her shoulder as if it was weightless. Everyone looked shocked and Karin was horrified at the amount of chakra she could sense coming from this one girl. "Who the hell are you!" Suigetsu was instantly protective over his sword, but surprised at how easily she could have snatched it and was now holding it as if it were a toothpick. "Hn.. Well aren't you rude.. But your the cute one so I guess its okay." She smiled innocently and swung the blade downward as it crashed into the dirt right next to where Suigetsu's feet would be..

Luckily he jumped back hurriedly right before it had actually hit the ground and pointed a finger at the female angrily. "Don't treat my fucking sword like a toy!" He growled at her before Sasuke interrupted. "What do you want with us?" His eyes had now switched over to the red-spinning pattern known as the Sharingan. "Ah, your the one I'm looking for.. Calm, Cool-seeming, Eyes just like your brother." She released the blade from her hand and let it fall to the ground; Suigetsu picked it up and was ready to swing it at her before Jugo reached out his arm and blocked him from taking another step forward. "_If she knows Sasuke's brother, it means she has information.._" Jugo whispered to Suigetsu, He nodded his head in agreement and slipped the blade back into position on his back.

"What do you know of my brother?" The crimson-gaze never moved from piercing directly into the emerald green one holding its ground. "Itachi Uchiha is your older brother; which makes you Sasuke Uchiha.. The only known Uchiha left alive after Itachi massacred the others. You've spent your entire life plotting revenge, and now your so close you can taste it." Suki's voice sounded calm as ever, even though she knew she was walking on eggshells with this touchy subject. She expected the Uchiha to do one of two things.. Remain calm as ever, or attempt to kill her right then and there.. He chose number one, to her relief.

"Smart boy you are.. Now that you see I've got information, what will you do?" Her lips slowly formed into that of a seemingly-evil smirk as she stared the Uchiha down. "_Her chakra has returned to a normal-level.. What the hell is up with this girl?_" Karin mumbled to herself while wondering what Sasuke would do next. "Just **kill** her Sasuke! We don't need her to get in the way!" Karin cheered him on before his harsh glare towards her made her stomach weak.

"By the way, that little eye trick wont work on me. Go ahead and try any genjutsu, I'm immune." Her smirk stayed the same but Sasuke's face was different now. One of the few times he would show emotion, for about a split second while his sharingan faded back to his natural black eyes; He almost looked scared, though he would never admit this, and would probably deny it if anyone said something.

"What exactly do you want, and who are you?" Sasuke had one hand on the hilt of his blade and the other hanging freely by his side. He was prepared for either standing there and having a nice chat, or a fight.. "Well first of all, I'm not here to fight you.. I guess you could say I'm on your side.. As for what I want, in exchange for my endless amounts of information, you have to let me tag along with your little group here." Suki sat down on the ground comfortably indian-style with her hands on her knees balled into loose fists. "As for who I am.. My full name is Suki Inuzuka; I prefer to leave the last-part out of it seeing as how I have no connections with said name. Although you may call me whatever you like, seeing as how I'm here to serve you." The emerald eyes of the female closed as her body moved and shifted to a different position on the ground. She was now on one knee in an almost-bowing position in front of the Uchiha.

Karin's eyes widened with jealousy at this action, Sasuke looked a bit surprised and Jugo and Suigetsu were confused as ever. "Alright, Suki.. What do you mean by that?" Sasuke stared down at her while his face returned to the expressionless stare he normally maintained. "You sure ask a lot of questions.. Well, lets just say my superior asked me to watch over you." She smiled up at him and returned to her sitting-position with her legs crossed within one another. "I don't need someone to watch over me.. Just who is your Superior?" He stared down at the female, trying to get a clue from the way she was dressed, but she had no headband, and no distinguishing clothes..

"How do we know we can trust you!" Karin blurted out, fixing her glasses to her face so they didn't slide right off. She still had a lot of questions for this strange '_Suki_' person, like how she was turning her chakra on and off.. "I'm sorry, was I speaking to you? I don't believe so." Suki turned to Karin with a sarcastic smile before paying no more attention to her and directing it back towards the Uchiha. "Well, they wish to not be known at this time. But you'll be meeting them very soon.. I also don't know exactly how to prove I can be trusted other than showing you I'm a good thing to keep around.." She shrugged her shoulders and frowned a bit when she thought of them not trusting her and having to just follow them around secretly anyway.

"Besides that.. If you chose not to let me follow you willingly, I'm going to have to anyway.. Unless I want my head cut off by my Superior.. Either way, _I'm not leaving_." She smiled innocently, it would've been cute if what she had just said wasn't so creepy. "And what makes you so useful? We've already got all we need in this group!" Karin burst out again, which was really irritating Suki. "Because-" Suki was going to snap back at her but was cut off by Sasuke, "Karin.. She has information we could use, if you want to leave you can." His voice was harsh, Karin's heart broke a little on the inside while she shut up and looked downwards; The reflection of light catching on her glasses and making her eyes non-visible..

"Well then, I guess this means I'm aloud to hang around?" Suki stood up, she was actually a slight bit taller than Sasuke, but was still eye-to-eye with him. "Just don't get in the way, learn to keep up, and give me all the information on Itachi.." He looked upwards at the sky and noticed it was getting darker by the minute, the sun had already begun to sink behind the horizon and set, waiting for the moon to take its place. "We'll have to camp in the woods tonight and make up for the ground we've lost tomorrow." Jugo spoke up for once, Sasuke nodded in agreement and began to walk off into the woods to find an open area where they could all sleep. Everyone else silently followed as if in sync with what they had to do..

Team Hebi knew the drill, this wasn't the first time they had to sleep in the woods, although sometimes they got lucky and found a nearby town to stop by in.. Sasuke usually found a spot for them to stay, Jugo kept strange animals away, Karin collected firewood and Suigetsu found a source of water for himself and the others. Suki really didn't get instructions on what to do so she followed Sasuke around like a lost puppy. "Why are-.." He was going to say something but figured she didn't know what to do since she hadn't been assigned a task. "Well, what exactly are you good at?" Sasuke decided to let her follow him around and look for a place to stay with the others at. "My main fighting techniques are either straight taijutsu or the fact that I'm a puppet master.. I'm also exceptional with tracking, chakra sensing and immune to any form of genjutsu.." Her emerald orbs darted around looking for a open space between the trees that everyone could sleep.

"Look, I know you don't trust me yet.. But I think eventually you'll come around and we might even become _friends_." Suki smiled and looked at the raven haired male as they walked along side by side. The male remained quiet aside from the sound of his breathing, which Suki paid attention to for a reason. She knew he had just recently fought Deidara and wasn't in the best of shape, but she needed to know how good of shape he was in. "_Did Dei-kun put up a good fight?_" She looked downwards with blank eyes, Sasuke stopped walking and turned towards her, "How did you.. Are you working for the Akatsuki?" His hand quickly shifted to the hilt of his katana again, he was growing more and more suspicious of her seeing as how she knew of Deidara.

"He was a friend of mine, that is all.. I wanted to know if he put up a good fight.. Its fine if you don't want to answer." She continued walking, her head returned to the normal position and she appeared unthreatened by the katana. "Yeah.. He did." His hands returned to his sides as he walked after her; He knew he couldn't attack her in this state, and she didn't seem like a threat yet. He would just have to watch her closely and keep her around for the sake of information for now..

While this little chat happened between the two, another was listening in the entire time. As expected, it was the ever-so-jealous Karin feeling threatened by this new female being around Sasuke. "_She's pretty.. Not as pretty as ME of course! But still! What if Sasuke likes her! She could be a major threat to me and Sasuke-kun_!" She stood there crouched behind a tree mumbling to herself angrily while fixing her glasses as always. "Only a threat to you and sasuke? What about me and Jugo, Eh?" The familiar voice of Suigetsu rang in her ears, she turned with an expression of shock and rage at her stupid team-member listening in on her conversation with.. Well, herself.

"**SU-SUIGETSU!** STOP STALKING ME!" She shouted and swung her fists like crazy in his direction, luckily he had moved out of the way quick enough to avoid 15 blows to the face. "Well your the one sitting here stalking Sasuke and Suki-Chan." He put his hands on his hips and stared down at her as if she were a worm. "Suki-**CHAN**!" Karin was never filled with more rage than she was right now. But before she had the chance to bitch Suigetsu's ear off for the next hour she was startled by the face of Suki inches away from her. "We found a spot to camp at, Princess." Her eyes were huge, green, and scarier than ever when viewed close up; plus the menacing tone of her voice wasn't helping either.

Karin jumped backwards screaming out of fear while Suigetsu got a good laugh out of it. "Stop fooling around you guys and help set up camp." Jugo sighed and walked off towards the area Sasuke and Suki had found; Suigetsu and Suki followed side by side, giggling at Karin's expression when she got scared.. Karin growled and followed behind them, stomping with rage every step of the way.. "**GLAD TO SEE YOU TWO ARE GETTING ALONG!**" She growled at them, but was ignored.

The sun had almost completely gone down now, the nocturnal birds and creatures were beginning to wake while the rest of the population went to sleep. Sasuke and Jugo were clearing away some sticks and other rocks from the small, but tree-clear patch of soft grass that everyone would be sleeping on tonight. "Perfect spot! Theres a small natural-hot spring only a little bit that way." Suigetsu pointed off to the west where he had found a beautiful pond earlier. Everyone was relieved to hear of this, they would get a good nights rest and have a hot bath in the morning.

Sasuke sat down on the ground and took off his coat, "Karin, did you get enough wood for a fire?" He was speaking to her but not looking at her, which gave her time to drool-over him. "Well?" He turned to face her after she didn't answer, "U-Um.. Why should I **always** have to get firewood! The rookie here didn't do **anything**!" She snapped the insult without thinking, "Actually.. I found the place your lazy-ass will be sleeping.. But fine, I'll get the firewood too." Suki glared at the other female before darting off into the woods to look for a already-fallen tree she could pick wood off of.

"Well.. Sasuke, what are you thinking?" Jugo sat on the grass a few feet away from Sasuke with a concerned look on his face. "She obviously has information about Itachi, we'll keep her around until that information isn't needed. Apparently she's also got some good skills with tracking, which can help.. Just watch your back, she doesn't look like much of a threat.." He laid back and stared up at the now brightly shining stars in the heavens. "Not much of a threat? Did you see the way she plucked my sword off me and held it like a toothpick?" Suigetsu snapped with a pissed-look on his face, "She's obviously stronger than she appears." He found a spot on the grass a bit away from both Sasuke and Jugo to sit down.

Karin greedily wanted to sit up close to Sasuke, but didn't want to seem pushy in front of Suigetsu and Jugo; so she stayed back a few feet. "She's obviously got some chakra-hiding trick up her sleeve, I couldn't sense it one minute and then it was outrageous the next.." Her glasses stopped glaring because there was no sun to shine on them and her eyes were visible once more. "I don't trust her." Karin pouted with her arms crossed over her chest and thought about bitching because she had to sleep on the ground.

Suki had actually overheard this entire conversation, because of her family bloodline of being an Inuzuka, she had amazing hearing like that of a dog. Plus she really wasn't that far away, she had found a dead tree with plenty of easy-accessible wood chunks falling off. She collected some of the larger chunks and stacked them into a pile; she was about to lift them to carry them back to the miniature campsite when she heard a twig snap behind her..

She dropped the wood and spun around quickly to become face-to-face with Suigetsu, who had come after her to keep an eye on her. "What? You guys can't even trust me to gather wood?" Her eyebrow raised as he walked past her with a smile and lifted the stack of cedar with ease. "Just thought I'd help.. But now that you mention it, SHOULD we trust you with wood?" His voice was sarcastic like it usually was when speaking to Karin. "Oh please, If I can lift your little twig of a sword with ease, I think I can carry wood." She grabbed another huge stack of wood and marched past him, bumping into his shoulder on purpose to make him drop his pile right onto his foot. He cringed with the slight bit of pain and glared at her while she carried the wood back to camp.

When she returned, everyone was sitting casually in the dark waiting for the warmth of a fire. "What the hell took you so long!" Karin again opened her big mouth in an attempt to look vicious in front of her crush. "Are you normally this annoying?" Suki calmly responded and set the wood down in the middle of where everyone was sitting. "Sasuke, do you have enough chakra lef-" Jugo was about to ask if Sasuke was able to use his fireball jutsu to set the wooden-pile aflame, but apparently Suki already handled it with a lighter she had kept in her pocket. "I'll take care of it." Suki smiled and poked at the now smoldering-cedar pile in front of her.

Suigetsu had finally returned holding two times the ammount of wood as Suki's pile and tossed it off to the side with a smile. Suki glared with an 'oh-really' expression on her face at him just having to outdo her on the simplest task. She figured he was probably a bit jealous at her insulting his sword earlier. After a bit more messing with the fire, Suki decided to find a spot to sleep somewhere in the circle. She had the choices of between Karin and Suigetsu, or Jugo and Sasuke; since she was already closer to it, she chose to sit in the open space between Karin and Suigetsu..

After a bit of just watching the fire burn and zoning-out into her thoughts, suki snapped back to reality to realize almost everyone else was asleep already. Sasuke had passed out quickly due to being tired, and Karin was trying to snuggle up as close as she could to him. Jugo was laying silently on his back the same way Suigetsu was, so she figured they all must be asleep. After getting comfortable in the cold but soft grass, she lay her head down and stared up at the stars silently. It was relaxing hearing nothing but the almost silent crackling of the fire and the occasional nocturnal bird noises; Before she knew it, she had fallen asleep.

It was the middle of the night and Suigetsu still couldn't fall asleep, he was laying perfectly still with his eyes tightly shut, but just couldn't rest. He snuggled down under the warm-cover of his coat like everyone else had on, but he just couldn't find a way to pass out until morning. After a bit of frustration and fumbling with tossing and turning, he flipped over to his right side and opened his eyes. A few feet away from him was the newest tag-along of team Hebi, Suki. She looked so peaceful while sleeping, a lot more calm than earlier with the constant power-struggle of her and Karin. He honestly had nothing better to do right now than watch her sleep; and he actually was enjoying it..

The rhythm of her breathing was subtle, but a very-so-often shiver broke this pattern. Suigetsu noticed she was the only one without a heavy coat like the others, they had all prepared for this journey with matching black-cloaks that could resist rain and cold. She apparently wasn't planning on staying outside on cold nights and didn't bring something warm for her journey.. It wasn't a freezing night out, and Suigetsu really didn't need his cover of warmth for now; He decided he might as well get used to this 'team mate' as much as he was with the others now.

Purple-orbs darted around in every direction, checking to make sure nobody else was awake to see his movements. Slowly and silently he sat up and slid his jacket off, he crawled over to the delicate sleeping female and carefully draped the jacket over her. It covered her almost completely, seeing as how the coats were designed for that; she suddenly stopped shivering and snuggled down between the warm jacket and the ground. Pleased with his small, but good-deed, Suigetsu slowly scooted back to his original spot and rest his body back down again. Now for some reason, sleep came easy to him, he was relaxed as ever as he lay under the stars and drifted off to his dreams of what would happen the next day.


	2. Misfortune Already

Writer Comments: Its a bit shorter than I wanted this chapter to be.. :/ But its 6 AM and I am going to sleep. _; Chapter 3 should be up in the next few days.

Morning came quickly, the sun rose slowly and by then the fire had burned itself out. The first one awake was Jugo, who was planning to get up early and spend some time with the nearby animals. He slowly shoved the jacket covering him off and sat up, he glanced around and saw the blurry sight of everyone else still asleep. He rubbed his eyes for a bit and blinked a few times to get rid of the morning-feeling and looked around again. Karin was uncomfortably close to Sasuke and Suigetsu didn't have his jacket covering him like everyone else did; Instead the new girl had it covering her. Jugo shrugged it off and got up slowly, he silently crept out of distance from the others to do whatever he wanted until everyone else was awake..

The second awake was Suki, hearing the chirping of birds and Jugo's faint voice in the distance was enough to disturb her sleep. She sat up and yawned silently before blinking and trying to get her eyes to adjust to the soft morning light. The first thing she noticed was a coat draped over her, she didn't remember how it got there but she recognized it from somewhere. Her emerald orbs glanced upward and slowly scanned the area, Karin, Sasuke, Jugo's empty spot.. "He must be awake already, I could ask him about it.." She was about to get up and find him when something caught her eye from the side, Suigetsu.

"This is one odd group, maybe this mission wont be as dull as I thought.. More like a vacation.." She thought silently to herself as she slowly pushed the jacket off her and stood up as quiet as possible; She noticed the others were starting to shift around and squirm, suggesting they were beginning to awaken. Suki clutched the cloak in her right hand and crept away from the 'campsite' quietly to find where Suigetsu and her had left the pile of wood for the fire yesterday..

After a few moments of searching she realized they had used up all the wood throughout the cold night and they would need just a bit more for the morning. They had used up all the broken pieces of the dead tree and there didn't seem to be anymore scrap wood laying around. "Fuck.. Well, this can get my anger out." She turned to a nearby tree and draped Suigetu's coat over a low branch to keep it from falling onto the ground; She didn't want to get it dirty or anything.

Her crimson sleeves hung down on her arms to her fingertips, but they wouldn't for long as she pulled and tugged them off, exposing the flesh on her arm and something else quite strange.. Her right arm just above the elbow had a weird almost metal-band looking thing around it; Nobody knew it, but this was Suki's fake arm. She had lost her right arm in a battle and got it replaced with a metal/wood mechanism, then was able to cover it with her own stretched-out skin as a special jutsu she developed for herself. It worked perfectly and was almost unnoticeable, plus this fake arm was one of her best weapons..

After a few slightly painful sounding cracking noises, she decided she had done enough stretching, thus it was ready for her to use today. Her hand clenched tightly into a fist and aimed for a nearby huge tree, it was tall and healthy which meant it wouldn't be falling naturally anytime soon. A split second and a powerful punch sent a rumble throughout the entire tree, it was actually quite loud and Suki stepped back cautiously. .

"Mmm.. First punch of the morning, always a bit weak but feels great on the muscle.. But I'm going to wake everyone up if I continue like this.. I could use a new toy though.." She thought to herself as she flicked her wrists, extending sharp-claws that were a normal-persons nails. She quickly jumped into the air and landed gently on a branch of the great tree, then proceeded to claw at the branch rapidly..

It only took a slash or two before the wood began to start cracking at the base to let go of the now damaged and falling branch. The pressure of her feet pushing off the branch caused it to break and fall, it also gave her a boost to jump onto the next branch and repeat this process. She did this a few more times, each time being more rough in her strike onto the wood, and each time only taking one slash to cut down huge branches with nothing more than her finger nails. Of course this wasn't silent, but it was a bit more quiet than if she took out the entire tree, plus it was really more fun for her. She could be as harsh as she wanted and crush each branch before sending it to the forest floor with a powerful kick.. She got to let out her anger and get wood for the fire later, a win-win situation she figured.

After awhile she had nowhere left to jump, so she clung to the side of the tree and looked downward with a raised brow. "Oh.. Shit." She noticed she had stripped the tree of every single branch and left nothing but the giant trunk rooted deep into the ground. "Well then.. That should be more than enough.." She mumbled to herself and slowly began to slide her way down, making sure to stop every now and then to get a better grip so she didn't fall instantly from this height. It was pretty high up, a fall from this height could cause injury to even the best-landing ninja..

"That was actually pretty easy, got to sharpen my nails, I have wood for the fire and extra to build a new puppet.." She smiled to herself as she slid down another foot or so before digging her fingertips deep into the tree bark to rest for a bit before continuing. Just as she started to feel better about this becoming a vacation she heard a cracking sound, her emerald eyes widened at the sight that she didn't even consider happening..

The bark she was clinging to was breaking away, she had apparently clung to a weak point on the tree and couldn't keep hold; She could either jump now or continue to slide down the tree until her fingers were bloody and then still end up hitting the ground painfully..

"Here goes nothing, if I can land the right way I might be able to avoid this.." She shut her eyes tightly and launched herself backwards lightly before she began to fall. She knew the fall wouldn't kill her, at the absolute worst she would end up breaking an ankle or something simple; As long as she didn't slam her skull against a rock or something she'd be fine. She opened her eyes again and took a deep breath to enjoy the slight view of her surroundings.. The adrenaline began to rush and made her feel amazing, but looking downwards at the quickly approaching ground quickly ruined that.

She figured she had about 30 more seconds to figure the best way to land without serious injury. She concluded to attempt to land on her back without busting her spine, but her thoughts were broken by the slight glimpse of someone walking around. It was a blurry view of the almost-fuschia haired female, Karin. "KARIN! GIVE ME SOMETHING TO LAND ON!" Suki screamed loudly, she saw Karin's head turn towards her, so she knew she had heard her; she could only hope the stupid bitch would understand..

"She's falling pretty damn quickly, I could just pretend not to hear her and claim this was a tragic accident.. Then it would be one less competitor for Sasuke-kun~ But this fall isn't enough.. I'll have to help her out.." Karin smirked evilly and grabbed hold of a nearby large tree branch and moved it right to the spot she figured Suki would fall to. "What the fuck is she doing!" Suki quickly braced herself for the fall and spun around to a standing-position right before crashing into the ground with a loud cracking noise. A large cloud of sawdust and dirt rose up from the ground and surrounded the area for a few seconds..

"Heheheheh.. Seemed to do the trick! Now to tell Sasuke what happened!" The glare from the sun made her eyes invisible through her glasses, but her smirk was quite visible. Karin spun around to skip away happily before hearing a loud coughing sound, she froze with horror realizing this damned female wouldn't be so easy to take out.. **"WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? YOU STUPID FUCKING BITCH WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU TRYING TO FUCKING DO!" **The extremely loud and pissed-off voice of Suki rang through the entire forest, a huge crowd of birds flew away quickly from the area out of fear..

Karin felt her heart stop for a second and then beat rapidly as she quickly turned around and put on a fake-concerned look. "U-Um, I-I thought.." Karin tried to choke the words out while staring horrified at the sight before her. Piercing emerald eyes and messy silver and black hair slowly raising up out of the pile of sharp-broken wood. Suki pulled herself up to a sitting position and growled loudly at the female she now intended to kill. Right before she attempted to stand her leg gave out and she stumbled forward, hitting another sharp piece of wood against her right arm..

She didn't really feel the arm-pain, but her leg felt as if it were on fire. She quickly glanced down to see her leg bloody and bending in a way it shouldn't, she was now more concerned about that than the various cuts and bruises on the rest of her body. What she thought was the worst possible scenario just got worse thanks to miss helpful, instead of busting her ankle, her leg was broken.

"Just **FUCKING** great, this is **FUCKING** great! Two limbs down.." She continued to growl, to Karin she sounded like an angry dog ready to rip somethings head off, and right now she did look a bit like that. "What the hell is going on over here? Why all the screaming?" A familiar voice approached the two females, the oh-so-recognizable Uchiha stood beside Karin and looked at Suki with a confused expression. "The hell happened here!" Suigetsu chimed in as he approached with the silent Jugo following behind, it was quite obvious all the commotion had either awaken the crew or got their attention..

"This fucking dog over here doesn't know how to jump out of a tree!" Karin quickly turned to Sasuke and attempted to make herself look good, acting harsh but innocent to the situation, nobody was buying her fake explanation. Sasuke completely disregarded her and questioned Suki again, "What happened?" His glance was focused on her leg, which was bloody and twisted. "There's no simple way to explain this.. Lets just say I fell and broke my leg." She tried her best to ignore the 'dog' comment Karin had made and focused her attention on trying to stand. She stumbled a few times before getting pissed and giving up for a few seconds to relax.

"Someone can help you up if they want, but as I said before, you have to keep up on your own to travel with us. We'll be leaving in two hours." The cold-hearted voice of the Uchiha irritated Suki as he walked off without saying anything more, Karin following right behind trying to flirt and failing miserably.

"Care to explain what happened now?" Suigetsu walked over to try and help her get up, but she quickly shoved his arm away. "I don't need your help." She mumbled softly, her pride shattered from being hurt so easily and possibly not being able to walk and failing the mission. Without thinking, she reached over with her left hand and tore into her flesh near the metal-bar above her elbow; Suigetsu and Jugo stared in shock wondering what the hell she had planned..

After a few seconds of ripping and silent groans of discomfort, she popped the arm right off; Exposing a metal-clutch type attachment at the area she had pulled the arm from. "What.. The.. Fuck.." Suigetsu mumbled and took a step back from her, staring at the arm as if it was the weirdest yet coolest thing he had seen yet. "A fake arm?" Jugo blinked and tilted his head to the side in a questioning-fashion. "Yeah.. Lost this thing awhile go, a friend made me this replacement." Suki stated quietly, she was now calm and content as she leaned on her right side in an attempt to stand again..

She stumbled a bit and fell back onto her ass, which only sent a surge of pain up her leg. "Alright.. I need your help." She looked upwards at Suigetsu with a bit of shame.. She hated feeling dependent on people, but this was necessary if she couldn't even stand on her own. Suigetsu cleared some of the wood out of the way and knelt down near her with his back facing her. "I'll carry you, come on." He looked back at her and smiled, "If you can't stand, you can't walk." Meanwhile, Jugo watched from the sidelines eagerly entertained as if this was all a good book he was reading.

Suki blinked a few times in disbelief, she wondered why he was being so nice but really couldn't refuse his offer.. She scooted over towards him and wrapped her arm around his neck to pull herself up, he grabbed her other arm off the floor and slowly stood up. She flinched a bit at the pain in her leg as the bone shifted with her changing position, she knew a few medical techniques but it was hard to do Jutsu with her right arm being fucked up from the fall, and now detached..

Suigetsu stood straight up and began walking across the chunks of wood over to where Jugo was standing, Jugo was now collecting the chunks of wood for the fire at the campsite. "Well, your fall broke the wood up into nice sized pieces for the fire at least." He tried to be positive and got a awkward smile from Suki and Suigetsu both. "Just go get her fixed up and I'll bring some firewood back." Jugo continued to pick up the scraps of tree branch while Suigetsu began to walk off with Suki clinging to his back.

"Nn.." Suki mumbled and ignored the pain she was feeling, she clung to Suigetsu as softly as she could without falling. "What? Are you afraid of me or something? Your going to slip off if you don't hold onto me." He stopped walking for a second and turned his face slightly towards her; His eyes locked directly at hers which made her nervous for some reason. She hadn't been this close to someone since her last talk with Deidara when they had hugged and parted ways. Now she was being carried around piggyback style by someone she barely knew..

"I don't want to be anymore trouble than I already am.. Plus I know I'm not the lightest girl to be carrying around." She shrugged and shifted forward to cling to him more cautiously, he turned back towards the direction he was walking and continued silently. The rest of the walk back was actually a lot of awkward silence other than the occasional snap of a twig or crunch of a leaf under his feet. "Your not that heavy, and its no trouble. I'm usually carrying around my sword, might as well carry you if you need it." He mumbled almost to himself as they reached the edge of the campsite, it really wasn't that long of a walk, but it seemed like it for some reason..

"What the hell is going on here? Your carrying the b-" Karin's insult was cut off by Sasuke, "Wheres Jugo?" He was unfazed by Suigetsu holding Suki on his back and was more concerned on everyone hurrying up so they could move on with the journey. "He's back there collecting firewood." Suki mumbled from over Suigetu's shoulder, ignoring karin's stupid remarks. "Oh how cute, dipshit came to your rescue did he?" Karin again opened her mouth to insult the two, which didn't seem to effect Suki.

"Sure did." Suigetsu stated bluntly in a serious-sounding tone, Suki looked just as shocked as Karin; But Karin was mostly pissed at Suigetsu taking her insult so well. Instead of reacting as he normally would, he came back from it and shut her up quickly, Suki just simply clung to him silently and looked around innocently as if she wasn't involved in this..


	3. Hot Springs

"Suigetsu.. Could you show us to that hot spring you found earlier so we can all just clean up and get ready to leave?" Sasuke changed the subject of the conversation just as Jugo appeared with a huge pile of dismembered tree parts and set them down onto the ground. He knelt down in the dirt and tossed some of the wood into another pile which would become the fire; Sasuke formed a quick handsign and spit a small stream of flames onto the pile until it lit up and began to burn. Karin stood there drooling over how quick and cool Sasuke could do handsigns and jutsu while Jugo prodded and poked at the fire to get it to really brighten up..

"Right this way." Suigetsu waited for them to finish tending to the fire before nodding and beginning to walk in the direction of a natural hot spring he had found the day before. Sasuke and Jugo stood up to follow, Suki had no choice seeing as how he was her only way of walking and Karin quickly tagged along with perverted thoughts of Sasuke bathing clouding her mind..

After a brief moment of walking Suigetsu suddenly stopped and looked around as if he was lost. Jugo and Sasuke were paying attention and also stopped, but Karin was drifting into dream-land and kept walking straight past them as they turned down a small path. Nobody bothered to stop her because they knew she'd find her way back eventually and start a fight with Suigetsu over it. The small group continued walking for just about another minute before they could hear the sound of rushing water; a few more steps and having to move past some thick branches and they spotted the site.

"Here it is." Suigetsu looked up at the beautiful water cascading down a rocky-slope into a large pool of water; which then lead to a few smaller pools that were heated by natural underground springs. The area was just a mesh of cool river water rushing down into a waterfall and hitting the surface where there just happened to be warmer underground water coming up to meet it. The place would be perfect for swimming aside from the rocks that divided and crossed the area, it looked like a really huge tide-pool with dividers and rocks you had to climb over to get to the cold or warm areas..

"Whoa.." Jugo smiled as he took in the amazing sight, Sasuke was unmoved by the beauty of the area and just wanted to relax for a moment and clean up. "I've seen better.." Suki mumbled sarcastically just to give Suigetsu a hard time, "You better be nice to the guy taking time to carry you around, or I'll drop your ass right here and refuse to help you." He snapped back, half jokingly to go along with her statement. "Psh.. I don't NEED your help... Its just nice to have." She partially whispered the last part under her breath and looked behind her to see none other than a very pissed off Karin stomping her way.

"Welcome back Princess, did you get lost?" Suki grinned at the fuschia haired female; Karin was about to screech her anger at Suigetsu before it was completely broken apart by a wonderful sight.. Sasuke and Jugo had picked one of the medium sized pools that was warmed by the underground; Jugo had already slipped into the water but Sasuke hadn't yet..

Karin stared blankly as if she was completely hypnotized at the sight of Sasuke about to undress, sadly her dreams were shattered when Sasuke noticed her creepy staring and moved away behind a rock. "Well aren't you just a bit of a creeper." Suki's words were like a bullet to Karin's ego, she quickly tried to come up with a response but couldn't. She simply stormed off angrily to find a warm pool of water to relax in, preferably one on the other side of the area Sasuke was in..

"Um.. You can set me down now." Suki poked at Suigetsu while the two of them watched Karin find a pool for the two girls to bathe in along the other side of a huge rock wall from the spot the guys had claimed. Suigetsu wondered over to where Karin was now taking off her shoes and gently let Suki climb off him and stand on her own. Karin glared while Suigetsu quickly walked around the other side of the rocks to avoid Karin screaming at him for something.

Suki cringed and stumbled forward a bit until she was at the edge of the pool; Karin had just slipped her shirt off and stood there in her bra glaring at the other female. "Can't you just heal yourself or something?" She snarled as she folded her shirt up neatly. "You think just because I'm a female I'm automatically also a medic? Haha, no.. Plus I need both arms to do Jutsu.. Just have to reattach this damn thing." Suki leaned against the wall of rock for a moment before carefully bending over and picking up her wooden limb from the ground.

"By the way, I hope you know I'm not after your damn uchiha.. He's not even remotely cute, I have no interest in that." Suki didn't look at Karin while she spoke to her, she was busy getting her arm to snap back into place on the hinges without hurting herself; she managed to get it into place and smiled at having another limb again. Karin's face was in shock at her statement, Suki looked up to see Karin staring at her as if she were a ghost.

"What?" Suki's eyebrow raised in question to the random staring, she stretched her arm outwards and twisted it back and forth for a moment to get used to having the limb connected again. "Just what made you say something like that!" Karin knew her very-obvious-secret was exposed, but continued to play dumb. "What? You think nobody notices the way you drool over Sasuke like some school-girl? Please, its pathetic.. I'm just letting you know I'm not your competition." Her little wooden and mechanical fingers moved and flinched a few times before clasping her other flesh-made fingers into a handsign..

Suki groaned quietly with pain as the skin from her upper arm slowly stretched and melted over her wooden arm to cover it completely. After a few moments of freaky-disgusting skin jutsu, her fake-arm was completely unnoticeable again aside from the metal-band at the top of her arm. Karin looked downwards, her glasses glaring with the light again hiding her eyes like it usually did. "Well then.." She mumbled and slipped slowly into the warm water; Suki shrugged and checked her arm for any imperfect spots on her arm's new skin..

After she had found none she hesitated for a moment but then slid her shirt off quickly along with her other clothing and dropped into the water. She clenched her fists at the stinging of all her cuts hitting the warm water, but after only a few seconds it felt so much better.. She relaxed and lay her head back onto the rock-edge she was just standing on; her bright eyes slowly shut and she focused on her breathing while she zoned out to relax for a bit.

Karin was glaring with jealousy, despite Suki just telling her she had no interest in Sasuke, this could be some evil plan to get him away from her anyway! "She's injured.. So she'll slow the group down and Sasuke will demand information and then leave her on the side of the road! Bwahaaha! ...But, if she does manage to keep up.. Uhg! Her boobs are bigger than mine! I've got to find a way to make myself more attractive to him than this bitch! I wonder how sexy Sasuke looks right now over there~.." Karin's thoughts went on and on plotting how to make herself look better than Suki, who really didn't give a flying fuck..

She slowly opened one bright emerald eye to see Karin scavenging the wall of rock to find a hole to peek through to get a look at Sasuke. "Your never going to get a guy when you do creepy shit like that." Suki mumbled and remained motionless with only one eye staring at the desperate Karin. "Shut up, how would you know anything about that?" Karin growled back at her and finally gave up the search..

"Ha.. Sweetie you don't know the half of it." Suki refereed to the creepy guy earlier that stalked her at the diner; this wasn't the first time odd things like that had happened to her.. Karin crossed her arms over her chest and looked off to the side, "Hmph! Whatever!" She ignored Suki's advice, even though secretly she wanted to hear what she had to say, she acted as if she didn't. Suki rolled her eyes at the ignorant female and began to slowly massage her hurt leg under the water..

After a while both the girls had finished bathing and were ready to get out of the water and begin the journey for the day, Karin made her way out of the water and unfolded her clothes to get dressed. Suki was still uneasy about moving so much with the shattered bone and crawled her way out of the pool. Karin turned around to notice Suki standing up, she had an odd tattoo on her lower back that caught her attention. She didn't say anything though and just kept to herself as she got dressed..

The two girls heard footsteps coming from around the corner just as Suki finished pulling her shirt on and straightening it out; It was Jugo weary to walk in on something and the damned Uchiha about to tell them to hurry up. Seeing that they were already completely dressed and ready to go, he decided not to say anything and just turned around to walk towards the campsite. "Wheres Suigetsu?" Suki noticed he wasn't with the guys, "He always takes the longest.." Jugo responded and turned to follow after Sasuke while Karin chased quickly behind.

Suki blinked and waddled around the side of the rocks to poke her head out and see just why Suigetsu took so long. Luckily for the both of them he was still in the water and not exposed, but he was just as shocked as she was to be staring at eachother so awkwardly. "Hurry the hell up, your my transportation." Suki slid the crimson sleeves over her arms that she forgot to put on earlier. "Um.. Well, let me get dressed at least.." Suigetsu was actually blushing, he could feel his cheeks get red and tried to force them to stop. Suki giggled at this and waddled back around the side of the rocks to give him some privacy..

After he quickly got dressed and got over the slight embarrassment of Suki walking in like that he shook it off and walked out to the part of the rocks she was standing at before. She was leaning against the wall staring off into space completely zoned out, he moved infront of her and put his hands on either side of the rock walls behind her. She blinked and snapped back to reality to see violet eyes pinning her against the wall, inches away from her face with his hair dripping wet and a sharp-toothed smile..

"May I help you, Sir?" Suki remained emotionless, much to his surprise.. However, he wasn't going to give up until she suffered the same burning-cheek fate that he did. His face moved ever so closer to hers until his forehead was literally pressed against hers; his eyes still locked into hers in a staring contest seeing which of them would crack first..

Suki could feel herself so slightly shiver at how uncomfortably close he was to her, but she knew exactly what he was doing and refused to give in.. He was trying to make her blush because she made him earlier, but she knew how to hide emotions pretty well. Emerald orbs pierced into violent ones, both people noticing how pretty the others eyes were, caught in a slight moment of distraction before Suigetsu moved back a bit.

Suki was about to speak up at him moving back and claim her victory before he moved even closer than before, his lips nearly an inch away from hers. Her entire body froze while she tried to back up but hit the rock wall behind her before she could even move, her face slowly turning red and her eyes widening. But instead of him moving away quickly and enjoying his victory, he stayed in this position for a few moments, a proud smirk plastered across his face.

"Nn.." Suki turned her head to the side and looked away with defeat, he finally took a step back and grinned proudly at her. She shook her head for a few moments for the burning red sensation of her cheeks to stop before glaring at him angrily and pouting. "Heheheh.." He chucked as he turned around for her to jump onto his back again so he could carry her back to the campsite..

She hesitated and placed her hand on his shoulder, she was basically standing on one leg and it wasn't so easy for her to jump; but she did manage to hop up and cling to his back like she did before. This time she didn't hesitate at all and wrapped her arms around his neck before resting her head over his shoulder. He turned his head towards her and smiled, his cheeks now painted a light pink once again while he started walking back to the campsite..

"I win." She whispered almost silently.. He shook his head in defeat but couldn't help but smile at that clever last move.. "I'll get my revenge again." He mumbled and wondered back to the area where everyone else was now sitting on the ground around the fire. Karin was giggling evilly and staring at them, Sasuke had closed eyes and was simply enjoying the warm fire and Jugo was giving them 'the look'..

"What?" Suigetsu stopped and stared at them questioningly, Suki raised her head and looked at them from over his shoulder; Karin was about to say something before Sasuke stood up and began to walk off. "We're leaving." He simply stated and expected them to follow, without saying anything else everyone followed in line. Jugo put the fire out, Karin walked uncomfortably close to Sasuke and the group simply followed along with the routine of travel..

Suigetsu stopped and picked up his sword for a minute and stood there staring at it. "Here, I'll carry it." Suki stretched her hand out to grab the blade, he slowly handed it over, not wanting anything to happen to it. Suki swung it around her back and held it over her shoulder; She knew this would get tiring after awhile, she would need something to hold it in place on her back.. She figured they would figure that out later, Suigetsu made sure she was alright to hold it before he started following after the group again.

Karin looked back and saw the two again, she strayed behind her being-up-sasuke's-ass-all-the-time and walked alongside them, "I saw what you two did back there.." She smiled evilly, little did they know she didn't follow Jugo and Sasuke back to the campsite, but was hiding behind a nearby tree stalking the two. She had crouched behind a tree trunk and watched them move closer to eachother, from the angle she was staring from it looked as if the two were making out; and she was not going to let them live it down..

"Huh?" Suigetsu pretended he didn't know what she was talking about and didn't think she saw the earlier making-eachother-blush-fight.. Suki rolled her eyes and ignored Karin, Karin simply gave them the 'you-know-what-i'm-talking-about' look and walked back over to her usual spot right next to Sasuke. Suigetsu looked at Suki while she rest her head back down on his shoulder while the group continued walking along a small dirt path towards wherever Sasuke lead them..


	4. Stalkers and Hospitals

After a bit of travel and awkward silence, Suki lifted her head to look around at the group; they all looked so at peace enjoying the quiet walk.. Time to disturb that. "Ay.. Uchiha, just where are we going anyway?" Suki looked at the road and noticed an upcoming split that lead down three different paths. Sasuke ignored her question for just long enough for the group to reach the split-roads before he stopped and looked around. The rest of the group followed in sync, stopping and resting for a moment..

"Eh..?" Suki again brought up the question, this time she got an answer. "Jugo got information on the western Akatsuki hideout location." He replied to her while sitting down on a rock near one of the roads, Suki gently swung Suigetsu's sword off her shoulder and set it down gently onto the ground with a chuckle. "Ahaha, really? The western hideout? You'll never find Itachi-kun with that kind of search.. Did you really plan to check every hideout?" Suki smirked as Suigetsu carefully sat down on the ground, allowing Suki to slip off his back and rest on the ground as well..

"And just what would you know about the Akatsuki hideouts!" Karin jumped into the conversation without invite, Suki glared over at her, "I'm sorry Princess, was I talking to you?" She looked back towards Sasuke and noticed the sudden glare in his eyes as well. "Stop calling me that, you.. You fucking dog!" Karin choked out the quickest insult she could come up with, which for once was very effective. "What..?" Suki lowered her head and spoke more softly, "What, you can't hear? For an Inuzuka you sure don't have the right-" Before she could even finish talking a Kunai stabbed her in the right arm causing blood to spurt out onto her shirt..

"..As I was saying.. The western Akatsuki hideout has been inactive for a few months now, the only one who would ever visit there would be Zetsu to check on things and destroy any former signs of information left behind.. It was also used as a burial ground for the bodies they didn't want to be found." Suki never raised her head, and the kunai-incident had shut Karin up and left Jugo and Suigetsu scared shitless at how quick and precise that was..

Sasuke blinked a few times and looked at the kunai that Karin was now pulling out of her flesh, he then looked back towards Suki and questioned her knowledge of the akatsuki. "I'm not going to ask how you know this, but I'll trust your judgement for now.." He shut his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest, ignoring Karin's screaming for him to no longer trust her due to the injury she just inflicted.

Sasuke stood up and faced the roads again, the middle would lead to the western akatsuki hideout and was about a days worth of travel, the left continued to travel off somewhere else and the right lead to a small town.. "That town might have people you can question about your brother, and possibly a hospital to get your bitch her arm bandaged properly.. Instead of wasting a day of travel to a hideout you'll find nothing at anyway.." Suki smirked and ignored Karin's screaming in her ear.

Sasuke hesitated for a moment before turning to the right road and beginning to walk down it, the group again calmed down and went through the process of following after him as if it was programed into their heads. "And possibly a place to get some damn water.. And you could get your leg fixed up, Suki." Suigetsu helped her climb onto his back and waited for her to lift the sword before they followed after the group. "Ha.. Yeah, the leg thing.. Almost forgot." She swung the blade over her shoulder and held it again like before while they traveled..

Before they knew it, they had reached the town; it was pretty much like the last one, a cluster of small businesses and hotel or two; Some restaurants and lucky for them, a hospital. It was really only a 10 or so minute walk, but it was worth it since now they could all get something to eat and maybe wouldn't have to stay the night outside again..

"Ah.. Finally we can stop for lunch." Suki sniffed the air filled with wonderful smells of rice-balls, ramen, sushi, and so many other delicious snacks. "Lunch? We haven't even had breakfast yet." Suigetsu rubbed his stomach and looked around for the best-looking food he could see. "Stop complaining, we're here now anyway, who cares what type of meal." Jugo was getting tired of the complaining, but really could use a meal right now.

Karin had already half-fixed her arm wound with a ripped piece of fabric tied around it, Sasuke noticed this and figured the hospital treatment could wait until they all had eaten. He glanced around a bit before a small little diner caught his eye, he headed in its direction as the rest of the group followed with huge smiles in preparation for the food; they all wandered inside and sat down at a table near the back.

Sasuke slid into the booth on the left side near the end, he could see the front door from here and didn't have to get up everytime someone else wanted to; Jugo then sat down next to him, much to Karin's angst. She huffed and sat down beside Jugo, which made that row uncomfortably squished together; this was because she refused to sit next to Suki after what happened earlier. Suigetsu let Suki slip into the booth on the opposite side of the others before he sat down next to her quietly..

The waiter arrived shortly and took everyones orders before leaving as quickly as she came, the next minute or so was another awkward silence that everyone was way too used to; then the waiter returned with the drinks for them all. Suigetsu didn't hesitate to instantly start sipping at the water she brought him, Suki and the others did the same with the hot tea..

"Hows your wound, Princess?" Suki sipped at her tea peacefully after asking the question, the Fuschia haired female glared but decided to act '_mature_' in front of Sasuke, "Doing just fine, Bitch.. Hows your leg?" She replied rudely, Suki chuckled a bit at this and smiled. "Aha, so I'll call you princess and you'll call me bitch.. Another witty crack at my family, I see? Bitch, female-dog? _Your so clever._" She made sure the last part had a thick layer of sarcasm before she sipped her tea again.

Jugo and Suigetsu stayed quiet and simply enjoyed the little bitchfight that was going on between the two, Sasuke could care less as always; He was lost in thought trying to figure out how Suki knew so much about the hideout they missed, and if they should go back and check just to make sure.. The two females of the group continued to calmly bicker at each other until the waiter again returned; This time she had the food with her.

The waiter was female, and she apparently hadn't noticed Sasuke sitting there before now; because she suddenly froze and freaked out like Karin usually did. "H-Here you go, sir!" She began to shake ever-so-slightly as she sat the bowl of soup infront of him, Karin noticed this quickly and stiffened up with anger. After the waiter cautiously set everyones food down she put her hands to her hips and tried to make herself look cute, "And just where are you strangers coming from~?" She was looking directly at Sasuke, who wasn't looking back towards her but silently pulling his cheap-wooden-chopsticks apart; "And just** WHY **do you need to know!" Karin growled and sat up, the female was scared by this and quickly ran off, "J-JUST CURIOUS!" She shouted as she scurried away like a scared mouse..

"Stupid Bitch." Suki rolled her eyes and while she picked at a cluster of noodles with her chopsticks, Karin couldn't figure out if that was directed at her or the waiter, so she chose to just keep quiet for now and eat. Suki nommed down some of her noodles and decided to break the awkward silence that always seemed to befall the group. "I was referring to the waiter." She looked at Karin, who looked up at her through light-glared glasses, she stayed silent but nodded with a smile-inside that it wasn't about her.

"I hate women.. They're all just boy-obsessed idiots with no strength and no skill." Suki looked back down at her food and took a bite or two between her next sentence, "And why are women expected to be medics? Because thats all they ever show.. No real fight-worthy skill." She paused her eating to sip at her tea again before noticing everyone was now listening to her talk, even Sasuke who always seemed uninterested. Karin couldn't really help but agree, she hated most women around her for the reasons of competition.

"Well, that broke the creepy silence but I have nothing more to say.. One of you start talking now." Suki set her tea down gently, Jugo blinked after swallowing a gulp of food, "What do you want us to talk about?" He had nothing on his mind, he was usually the one listening. "I don't know, I don't care.. This group is too quiet, Its either screaming and fighting or just awkward silence." Suki felt something warm on her leg suddenly, she looked down and blinked a few times.

One of the many cuts made in her pants from the sharp tree branches had apparently ripped the entire pant-leg by now, the stitches had slowly been coming undone one by one until the last one had snapped. She awkwardly shuffled around and tugged the rest of the ripped-fabric off her leg; she was now wearing what apparently was shredded-black shorts instead of her regular long black pants. She sighed and looked at the dried blood on her leg along with the many cuts that could possibly be infected by now..

The group chattered randomly about where they were headed next while Suki did this to her pants; Finally after they had all finished eating they left money on the table and got up to leave. Suigetsu was helping Suki out of the booth when he blinked and stared. "Since when are you wearing shorts?" He helped her stand before she stumbled forward and he had to catch her.

She was now awkwardly leaning against his chest as if they were hugging, she quickly moved away and coughed hoping nobody saw that, "Erm.. Since my pants apparently ripped from the cuts and such.. If we end up having to sleep outside again its gonna be cold as hell unless I get these things fixed." She sighed and was about to have him turn around so he could carry her before someone interrupted them..

"Oh.. I see how it is .. This is why you rejected me, well you two are lovely together! **I HOPE HE MAKES YOU HAPPY LIKE I COULD HAVE! **_DOES HE LOVE YOU LIKE I DO!_" The random creepy guy who had stalked Suki in the diner a day ago suddenly appeared and joined in on the conversation, he began pointing fingers and bitching at them a mile-a-minute so that they didn't even understand what the hell he was saying..

"Who the fuck is this?" Suigetsu finally got a word in as the guy stopped speaking to catch his breath, "Uh.. My stalker I guess.." Suki sighed and facepalmed. "WHO AM I? _WHO AM I?_ I'M THIS BEAUTIFUL WOMAN HERES _COULD-BE-LOVE_! AND JUST WHO ARE YOU? MY **REPLACEMENT**? **DO YOU MAKE HER HAPPY**? DOES SHE LOVE YOU _AS MUCH AS I LOVE HER_!" The man began to go crazy again before Suki quickly punched him across the face, he flew backwards across the building and crashed into a waiter and then smacked into a table before passing out from the massive blow.. "Uh.. Did he just say we-" Suigetsu was blushing lightly but awkwardly before Suki jumped onto his back and tugged on his hair.

"Shut up, just walk." She growled and watched to make sure the guy didn't get up again, Suigetsu had a huge grin on his face as he walked out of the restaurant holding Suki piggy-back-style; his sharp teeth all showing as he approached the others who were waiting outside. "Suigetsu, take the girls to the hospital and get them fixed up, Jugo and I are going to ask around for information and find a place to stay for the night." Sasuke didn't question the loud crashing sound or the odd smile Suigetsu had painted across his face.

"We'll meet back at the hospital in a few hours to go over information and then hopefully have somewhere to sleep by then." Sasuke looked at them before taking off, they all nodded in agreement with the plan as they split off into different directions. Jugo decided to ask the animals around the nearby area outside the town while Karin wanted so badly to chase after Sasuke but had to follow Suigetsu and Suki to the hospital quietly..

After a bit of talking to the nurse and convincing her she didn't need any information about them to simply heal the wound; the three were sent to the waiting room.. After another short wait a nurse arrived and took Karin into another room to clean and bandage her wound. After that another nurse approached Suki and Suigetsu; Suigetsu lowered Suki off his back and gently helped her waddle with the nurse into another room while he picked up his sword and went back to the waiting room..

"How cute! You really are lucky to have a guy like that!_ I wish my boyfriend would carry me around when I'm hurt.._ Thats sooooo sweet!" The nurse squeeled as she began getting the supplies to clean Suki's wound, Suigetsu heard the comment she made and decided to take a seat near the door of that room so he could listen in on the conversation. "Uh.. Yeah.. He's um.. Really sweet." Suki awkwardly smiled and played along with the story so she wouldn't have to explain herself.

Suigetsu leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes while eavesdropping on the two girls; his face was covered in another sharp-toothed smile as he heard Suki try to randomly come up with a story to explain everything to the curious nurse.. "So how long have you been together? Does he carry you around even when your not hurt~?" She continued to burst out with questions Suki couldn't answer; but something caught her attention from the corner of her eye.. Suki glanced over out the doorway and saw the edge of Suigetsu's sword next to one of the chairs outside the room. _"Oh so you wanna listen in eh? Fine.." _She thought to herself before spicing up the story..

"Well actually, we're not together yet.. I guess he just doesn't have the balls to ask me out yet!" Suki giggled as the nurse finished cleaning her wounds, "Oh you know how boys are! They are always so silly and take way too long to realize what they could have!" The nurse sighed and seemed as if she was speaking from personal experience, "Stupid boy should've snatched me up when he had the chance! But he was busy chasing after a stupid dream and so I left for nursing school.. He doesn't know what he's missing now! Mwa!" The nurse looked at herself in the mirror and blew a kiss at the reflection..

Suki chuckled a bit at that and layed back on the table gently while pulling her leg up onto it as well; The nurse turned back around and took her white gloves off. Her hands began to glow a brilliant blue color with chakra as she laid her fingertips gently onto Suki's leg. "Oh my.. I don't know how you did it, but the bones in this leg are completely shattered! I-I'm so sorry, I can't heal this all the way.. But I can get you a cast and your silly man out there can have an excuse to keep carrying you around." The nurse winked at Suki and helped her sit back up while she got a measuring tape out of the drawer and sized up Suki's leg. After she was done she smiled, "I'll be right back with some more supplies to clean the rest of those cuts and scrapes Miss." She quickly left the room while Suki lay back down flat on her back to relax.

When she opened her eyes again after a split-second she was staring directly into the familiar violet ones of her team-member. "What the hell did you tell that nurse!" He was hovering over her with his arms pinning her down on either side, almost laying on top of her in the middle of the hospital bed. Suki blinked at the position they were in, "I simply went along with the story she started.. Besides, how would you know what I said unless you were listening!" Suki put her hand on his chest in an attempt to push him away, but he wasn't going to budge this time.

"So what? It sounded interesting, but thats not the point! Why did you tell her-" Suigetsu was cut off by the nurse walking into the room again holding some needles and bandages. "O-OH! I'll leave you two alone.." She quietly backed away and shut the door. "UH.. You don't hav-.. Erm.." Suigetsu tried to choke out an explanation before being caught off guard as Suki shoved him off, he fell backwards into a tray of medical supplies and tumbled onto the floor..

The nurse stood outside the door listening for a moment but all she heard was crashing sounds, Suki screaming and Suigetsu's groaning. _"I hope they don't get too wild in there, I have to clean this place up.. Oh! That must be why she's injured.. Wow.. I wish my stupid boyfriend were like that.. He's too gentle!"_ The nurse silently sobbed to herself and waited for the 'couple' to finish. Inside the room Suki and Suigetsu were fighting, throwing things at eachother and bitching. Finally they stopped when Suigetsu accidently hit Suki in the leg with something he had thrown..

"S-Sorry!" He walked back over to her on the other side of the room to see if she was okay, she was clenching her fists and resisting the urge to scream with pain. She lifted her head to look up at him, "Unfair, asshole, you owe me." She sighed when the surge of pain finally stopped, he again resumed the position of pinning her on the table with his hands on either side, this time she was sitting up though; So they ended up a lot closer than before.

His violet eyes pierced hers as he gave her a questioning look, "And just what do I owe you!" As he spoke Suki began to smile, she leaned forward just a bit where her forehead was about touching his. "I never noticed.. My my, what sharp teeth you have.." She smiled and continued to stare at him without blinking, which made him nervous as hell. But he knew he couldn't show that, he had to keep his facade on and win another of these who-will-blush-first-battles; and this time nobody was there to see them..

"The better to bite you with, my dear?" He followed along with the storyline-quote, which made Suki curious as to what he planned to do next. Just as Suigetsu began to slowly lean forward towards her again they both were distracted by the loud voice of someone familiar. _"Dammit Karin.."_ Suigetsu mumbled and began to back up slowly before something stopped him.. Suki suddenly wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer than before, his face lit up bright red as her soft lips touched his for the first time..


	5. Not gonna ask, don't wanna know

Suigetsu was still in shock for a few seconds after Suki had backed away and turned her head to the side, "S-Sorry.. Too far?" She bit her bottom lip and wondered if their little 'game' had gone far enough already; she looked back up at Suigetsu and had never seen such a menacing smirk on his face. _"Don't think your getting away from me that easily.." _He seemed to whisper as he leaned in towards her and pressed his warm lips against hers again; This time they both responded accordingly..

Before they knew it the kiss grew deeper and deeper, both of them being more rough to the point of Suigetsu _'Accidently' _biting her bottom lip. She pulled back with the slight pain and could feel something warm dripping off her chin, she was actually bleeding from his little bite. "Oh.. Shit.. Sorry." He blinked, he hadn't meant to hurt her, even though she really didn't look like she was in much pain. She giggled and licked the blood off just as the door to the room slowly began to crack open..

After only a few cracks the door swung open completely and in rushed a very pissed Karin and the nurse from earlier. "SUKI HURRY THE HELL UP YOU GUYS ARE-" She suddenly stopped and stared at the sight, Suigetsu was leaning over Suki and her lip was bleeding, they were both blushing and looked like they had something to hide.. Suigetsu quickly backed up and without saying a word left the room with Karin following close behind beginning to bitch at him..

The nurse stared at Suki and blinked a few times, she giggled as she took out bandages and began to fix up Suki's leg for her. Suki returned the giggle and the two girls just began laughing for no real legit-reason other than they both knew exactly what went on and how strange and out-of-place it was. The nurse had tended to most of her wounds, but Suki also had to undress and let the nurse take care of the other ones.

"Okay, all done here.. But miss please don't tell me your putting those old things back on! Here, do you have any money? Theres a really nice clothing shop right next to here!" The nurse smiled and pulled out her purse, she handed Suki a bit of cash and standard-medical-clothing for the patients. "Why thanks.. And ma'am, my name is Suki.. I didn't catch yours.. Your just so nice to me, I'd like to think if I returned to this village I'd have a friend to come see." Suki smiled and put the cash away in the pockets of the hospital-clothing she was given before she began to get redressed.

"Suki? Haha, thats so epic! My name is Yuki! And you bet Suki, next time you come back here you and that boy of yours better be officially together so you can have some stories to tell me!" Yuki smiled and waited for Suki to get dressed before opening the door to leave the room with a wave; Suki waddled after her and stepped outside the room with a smile..

Karin and Suigetsu blinked and stared at her change of outfit, she looked like a ghost wearing white shorts and a long matching white jacket to go along with it. Suigetsu couldn't help but notice how good she looked in shorts, and he noticed how the nurse purposely didn't give Suki crutches to walk with. "Where the hell are your clothes?" Karin blurted out in question, Suki ignored this and happily jumped onto her place on Suigetsu's back; she again grabbed the sword and resumed its position on her shoulder like before, the two leaving the building while ignoring Karin completely.

"So what is with the change of uniform? Your old clothes too shredded?" Suigetsu walked right past a little clothing shop, Suki flicked his ear to get him to stop, "Wait wait wait, go in this store and I'll explain." Suigetsu flinched at the flicking and followed her command by taking her inside the store, it was a regular old uniform-shop with lots of choices. "Yuki.. The nurse, gave me money to get new clothes because mine were trashed." Suki smiled and climbed off his back, she used the counter of the store as something to lean on while she looked around for something she would want to wear.

Karin finally caught up with them and entered the shop, being a female she loved shopping and quickly got caught up and distracted looking for something sexy to buy that she could wear to seduce Sasuke. Suigetsu had no interest in changing outfits and simply watched the girls browse, he pulled one of the water bottles off his belt and sipped at it quietly..

Before long Suki had given up her search for something new, she figured her old uniform was perfectly fine and she looked for something similar. She found a charcoal grey tank-top styled shirt like her old one, the same crimson-sleeve arm warmers and a pair of black shorts that went to the knees. She figured because her leg was so bandaged and such it would be hard to dress in regular pants; so she would wear shorts for now until it was healed completely. She tried them on in the dressing room and they fit nicely, she also spotted a cute leather collar on the counter while she was paying for her merchandise and couldn't help but throw it in..

"Oh, and ma'am these sleeves come with a matching sash around your waist." The clerk smiled and handed her a crimson piece of fabric, her eyes lit up and she paid for the items with a smile, "Perfect, now I don't have to carry around that damn sword on my shoulder." She waddled along the edge of the counter before reaching back where Suigetsu and Karin were now standing. Karin looked upset and was holding some sort of silky black dress, Suki rolled her eyes and handed Karin the rest of her money. Karin looked up at her in shock and took the money with a dorky smile before rushing off to buy the dress.

"Well you two are becoming friends now, aren't you? And wha'cha buy?" Suigetsu noticed the collar first as Suki picked it up and put it around her neck happily while looking at herself in the mirror on the counter. She could see Suigetsu staring at her through the reflection, "What? I like it." She turned to him and smiled, "Plus look, I got this so I can hold your sword on my back instead of over my shoulder." She held up the red fabric and waved it around all crazy-like, Suigetsu chuckled and shook his head. "How long am I gonna have to carry your ass around, eh?" He placed his hands on his hips and leaned to where they were completely eye-level, "Oh please, you act like you don't enjoy it." Suki stuck her tongue out at him just as Karin returned happily squealing over her new clothes.

The three then left the shop and walked around until they found Jugo standing outside of a hotel waving at them, they approached him and followed as he lead them inside up the stairs to the room they had. It was a three room cozy little place with a nice view from the window. "We could've gotten four rooms, but we're running low on cash. Some of us can be on the couches or floor I guess." Jugo noticed the cut on Suki's lip and everyone having shopping bags but decided not to ask.

The two girls quickly scurried into one of the rooms to change, Suki didn't exactly scurry but waddled quickly as possible after Karin, they both managed to get in the door at the same time while Suigetsu and Jugo stared at them strangely. "Um.. The girls went shopping, I see?" Jugo blinked and shook his head before walking to the other side of the room to open a window for the birds to fly in and greet him. "Yeah, Suki's clothes were too trashed to wear anymore so some chick at the hospital gave her money for new ones; She had extra I guess and shared with Karin." Suigetsu sipped at his water bottle again before sitting down on the floor and leaning against the wall.

"Wheres Sasuke?" He shut his eyes and relaxed, Jugo was now petting a little bird that was singing on his shoulder as he replied, "Out asking around for info on his brother of course." He let the small avian dance around on his finger before flapping away out to its home somewhere in the surrounding forest. "You know, if those two girls don't end up becoming friends its gonna be hell for the rest of us." Jugo sighed and slid down to a sitting position with his back leaning against the wall next to the window. "Eh.. I guess, I don't really see if happening though.. They are so different." Suigetsu opened one eye to take another sip of his drink before hearing the door to the girls room crack open slowly.

Quickly as ever the two emerged from the room happily, Suki had her arm over Karin's shoulder so she could stand straight as the two wondered into the living room to strike a fashion-filled-pose. "TA-DA!" They shouted in unison, Jugo and Suigetsu both stared awkwardly not knowing how to respond. The girls both at the same time seemed to pick up the nearest object and toss it at the males for not complimenting them instantly.

Suigetsu was smacked in the head with a lamp thrown by Suki, and Jugo got a book to the face from Karin right as Sasuke walked in on the scene. He blinked a few times and sighed. "Not gonna ask, don't wanna know." He mumbled and shuffled over to the room he claimed as his earlier, Karin quickly followed after ready to show off her new sexy dress; Suki now had nothing to stand on and flopped right over onto the floor..

"K-KARIN! Dammit.. Suigetsu.. Can you help me up?.." Suki groaned from the floor, Suigetsu wasn't too happy about being smacked with a lamp and turned his head away, "YOU HIT ME WITH A LAMP!" He snarled and stood up and walked over to her, he was now standing above her looking down at her helplessly on the floor like a turtle. "COME ON! ..P-Please?" Suki sniffled and used a cute-chibi voice that made Jugo and Suigetsu both melt a little on the inside.

"Aw.. Fine." Suigetsu's eyes were sparkling with the almost-disgusting-cuteness in a little helpless Suki on the floor, he quickly reached out his hand to help her up but the sharp sensation of her claws digging into his arm broke this sparkly-wonder-moment as he flung backwards in pain; Suki was still clinging to him when he did this, so she ended up toppling over with him and landing on top of him..

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR!" He looked up at her and shouted then looked over at his now-bleeding arm. "I HATE USING THAT RETARDED VOICE AND YOU DIDN'T HELP ME UP UNTIL I DID!" Suki shouted back at him, "YOU HIT ME.. WITH.. A ..LAMP!" The argument raged on while the two lay on the floor in a seemingly-suggestive pose that would look horrible if they weren't fighting, Jugo was overly entertained and laughing his ass off the entire time.

Before they knew it, they began fighting right there on the floor, it ended up with Suki sitting across his chest and their hands interlocked pressing against eachother trying to shove eachother off seeing who was stronger. Jugo was expecting Suigetsu to win but if he were getting money it would definitely be on Suki this time; she was full of rage and didn't look like she was going to give in anytime soon. The two continued to scream and fight until finally Suigetsu's arm began to give in to her strength and upper-hand at being the one on-top..

"WHAT THE FUCK IS WITH ALL THE YELLI-... WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TWO DOING!" Karin poked her head out of the door to Sasuke's room and screamed at the two before seeming them on the floor awkwardly, then she screamed even louder. "UHG EVERYONE JUST STOP YELLING!" Suki finally screamed louder than anyone and they all got quiet, she shifted around a bit before getting off Suigetu and sitting on the floor next to him.

He sat up and smiled innocently at Karin, "Oh look, Sasuke is-" He didn't even have to finish his sentence before Karin slammed the door to the room shut a disappeared once more. Jugo chuckled at this and picked himself up off the floor, he sat on the window edge and smiled as the little bird from before returned to his shoulder. Suigetsu leaned over and rest his head on Suki's shoulder, which surprised her and made her blush a bit. "Winning.." Suigetsu mumbled and nuzzled into her shoulder with his eyes closed as if he were about to fall asleep..

Suki couldn't help but notice how sweet and cute he really could be when he tried to; She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him a bit closer towards her, he was sitting infront of her leaning on her now; Jugo sat across the room watching the two and smiling. "Aww, you kids." He mumbled and watched the little bird dance around on his shoulder again. Suki smiled like a dork at Jugo and cuddled Suigetsu close to her before noticing he actually had fallen asleep; she looked out the window and noticed it actually was getting dark and would be time for the group to get some rest..

Sasuke and Karin apparently hadn't emerged from the room yet, Suki figured Sasuke had fallen asleep while Karin stalked him, or something of that sort. Jugo shrugged and shut the window behind him quietly after the little birds had left to go to sleep for the night; He then wondered off to the middle room that he now silently claimed as his.. Suki was wondering if she should wake Suigetsu now or let him sleep for a little bit longer so she could enjoy how adorable he was at the moment.

She didn't even get to chose because he suddenly sat up and yawned, "Whoa.. Sorry about that.. Just tired." He mumbled and rubbed his eyes, Suki was smiling so big at the hazy violent eyed male infront of her. "What..? Why are you staring at me all creepy-like?" He blinked a few times and wondered if she was about to smack him with something for falling asleep on her like that.. "**SOOOOO CUUUUUTEEEEEEE!**" She suddenly lunged forward and hugged him like a doll; after a few moments of squeezing him as if he were a toy he managed to struggle free and avoid suffocating under her girly-squeals and tight-hug.

"BAH! I'm not cute!" He slapped at her until she let him go finally and he was able to crawl away from her, she attempted to follow him but couldn't due to her leg-issue. He stood up and pointed down at her. "Hah!" She glared up at him, "I demand you carry me to bed!" She realized what she just said and lowered her head a bit, "Ooh.. I see how it is then.. Don't mind if I do, Ma'am.." Suigetsu knelt down for a minute and scooped her up in his arms, this time holding her wedding-style as if she were his bride. "N-NO! WAIT, THATS NOT WHAT I MEANT.." Suki nervously choked out the words and hoped he wouldn't drop her from carrying her like this.. Her face was bright red as he proudly carried her off into the bedroom and shut the door behind them; But did she really want to fight him off..?


	6. The AlterEgo

"S-Suigetsu! Thats not what I meant, put me down!" Suki kicked her one good leg and flailed her arms around, he chuckled and held her tightly so he didn't drop her as he walked over to the queen-sized bed and set her down gently. "You ass.. Don't think just because I hurt my leg that I can't kick your ass if you ever try that again! I will not be carried around like a damn doll!" She growled at him and sat up, her sharp fangs could be seen now that were part of her bloodline. His eyebrow raised as he sat down next to her, he then lay back and calmly yawned while his eyes shut as if he were going to sleep.

"Hey! Don't ignore me, I'm bitching at you." Suki turned and poked his stomach, he didn't really respond other than his hand shooing her away. "Dammit women, your starting to act like Karin." He mumbled, which was a big mistake that he only realized after the massive punch to the stomach that caused him to topple over and fall off the bed. "DON'T EVEN." Suki snarled and crawled back on the bed and turned away from him to fall asleep pouting.

"Gahh.." Suigetsu groaned and got up, he struggled to stand and flopped back onto the bed again, his head crashed into Suki's side which hurt her ribs and his neck. "Uhg, cheap shot." Suki winced and rolled over so that his head was now resting on her stomach like a pillow. "I didn't know you were laying there, jeez." He sighed and shut his eyes again like before. Suki put her hands behind her head and stared at the roof silently, she watched the fan above them spin ever-so-slowly as if it were going to stop, but it never did..

Finally Suigetsu broke the silence again before she could relax enough to sleep, she apparently zoned out so much she hadn't realized when he sat up and was now sitting in the indian-style position staring at her. "Um.. What?" She noticed how her lips stung slightly with every word she spoke, it was from the cut made on them earlier by Suigetsu's sharp shark-like teeth. "Doesn't it hurt?_ Even just a little?_" His head turned to the side slightly while he stared at her. "Huh?" She had no idea what he was talking about.. "Your lip is cut.. Doesn't it hurt when you talk? Mine did when I cut it on accident. It doesn't really hurt, just stings a little." He replied and smiled wide at her cluelessness.

"Yeah.. Just a little bit of stinging.. How the hell do you cut_ your own_ lip?" She sat up and moved into the same position he was, they were now sitting across from each other indian-style with their knees touching. "What? You've never bit your own lip on accident? With those fangs there its hard to believe you haven't." He smiled and refereed to her teeth, she reached out and poked his teeth that were showing because of his smile. "I'm careful enough not to, and besides that, your teeth just might be sharper than mine.. You damn fish." She moved her hand away from his face and flicked his nose lightly.

He flinched and glared at her for the flick, "I'm not a fish! If you wanna see somebody who looks like a fish go find that Kisame Hoshigaki." He shut his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest in protest, She smiled widely and brightened up at the mention of Kisame. "Ooh, I know what you mean. He's a little shark boy~!" He opened one eye at her response and felt a bit uneasy. "How the hell do you know him? And.. _Little_ shark boy? The guy is like 7 feet tall!" Suigetsu opened both eyes and leaned forward a bit with his hands on his knees now.

Suki got quiet and realized she was giving away too much info and decided to change the subject as quickly as possible. "I just met him once, no big deal.. But besides that, I definitely think your teeth are sharper." She attempted to get him distracted and back on the previous subject, sadly her plan failed as he continued to stare at her suspiciously. She realized she was going to have to do a bit more to get him off the subject quickly, but before she could he seemed to do it for her.

"Suki.. You said your full name was Suki Inuzuka.. Right? You have the sharp teeth, the attitude and the claws.. But why don't you have a dog with you, or have those red-marks on your cheeks, and the multi-colored-hair? Plus your eyes are that really pretty green color..?" He resumed the position of his arms crossed over his chest while she stared at him blankly. "Um.. T-There's nothing wrong with my hair! O-Or my eyes! I'm just.." Suki backed away from him a bit and shuddered at trying to come up with an explanation for it all and deal with the shots at her appearance..

Suigetsu noticed the sudden change and put his hands on her shoulders, "Its alright, you don't have to explain. And for your information, your hair is quirky and unique, and your eyes are some of the most beautiful I've seen.. I didn't mean for you to take my questions as an insult, I can tell you don't really wanna talk about it. Thats fine." He shook her slightly for a moment to make sure she was paying attention, she flinched and lowered her head. She was relieved that they had gotten off the original subject, even though it moved to a more personal one she also wished to avoid, she was just glad they both had ended the whole discussion.

"Suki-chan.. Smile! You look so sad right now.." Suigetsu made a pouty face and felt as if it was his fault, he wondered why he even suddenly cared so much about this damn girl. The only reason he was hanging around with Sasuke anyway was to get swords and have a chance at getting to Kisame.. Then Karin came along and made the whole thing more annoying, Jugo wasn't much of a problem.. But then Suki. What could he really say about her? He didn't dislike her, and he really didn't mind having her along. Maybe in-fact he enjoyed her hanging around, even if it had only been a short time since they met and he did have to carry her around and trust her with his sword..

"Sui.." She looked up and smiled, she suddenly leaned forward and fell onto him in a hugging-position. He was surprised at first but relaxed and pet her head softly. "Tired, are we?" He shut his eyes and let her snuggle into his chest. "Your a lot warmer than that jacket." Suki mumbled and refereed to the other night when he leant her his jacket without her even knowing because she was cold. "Oh really? You should've kept that money you gave to Karin and bought a jacket." He smiled and rest his chin onto the top of her head, "Or maybe I did on purpose so I'd have to hug you for warmth~?" She teased him, she originally wasn't even thinking of the whole jacket-situation, but she could make him think that she was.

"Clever.." He grinned and leaned back quickly so that he was now laying on his back with her on top of him, she looked up with surprise and stared at him quietly. She moved forward a bit and rest her head back down across his chest, his body was warm and comforting versus laying on the cold hard ground. She could hear his heartbeat pounding softly, she listened to the melodic rhythm and shut her eyes slowly. The room suddenly went dark as Suigetsu had reached over and shut off the lamp that was previously lighting the room. It was now dark and quiet, silent and comfortable; Before either of them knew it they had fallen asleep..

Morning came quick, Suki opened her eyes slowly and painfully at the bright light shining in through the window filling the room with that bright, hazy, but warm looking feeling. She rubbed her eyes and blinked a few times to be able to see clearly before looking down and noticing the still-sleeping Suigetsu laying there drooling. She tried not to giggle or disturb him as she slowly got up off of him and stood beside the bed; He looked so damn dorky, but so cute.

She yawned and leaned against the window while she stretched, judging by the amount of people on the streets outside and the lighting it couldn't have been that late; Probably around 7 am or so. Suki could hear her stomach rumbling and decided it was time to get something to eat, she figured it would be alright to let Suigetsu sleep until Sasuke or one of the others woke him up. She used the side of the wall and anything she could reach to help her hop to the other side of the room and crack the door open, the only one awake that she saw was Jugo sitting in the window playing with a squirrel. "Good morning." She called out to him as she entered the room and shut the door behind her quietly.

"Oh, good morning Suki.. Sasuke went to the bath-house up the road, I just got back.. Is Suigetsu still asleep?" He questioned her as he watched her struggle to get over to a chair to sit down and rest for a second; He would've asked her if she needed help, but it was a bit too late. "Ah, yeah.. Lazy-ass is still sleeping. Karin went off stalking Sasuke? I guess I should head over there too and clean up.. Any idea where Sasuke plans to make us walk today?" She took a breath and stood up slowly, Jugo shut his eyes and leaned against the wall next to the window. "Yeah, she did.. And no clue, probably another of the hideouts." He replied and opened his eyes to watch the small mammal on his shoulder; Suki nodded and picked up the chair she was just sitting on and broke the backside off to use as a walking-stick so she could move more easily.

After walking all the way out of that room, down the hall, down the stairs and out of the building.. She had gotten pretty used to walking with this chunk of wood; Now she just had to find her way to the bath house Jugo had mentioned. Emerald eyes darted around in every direction, looking, scanning, searching, then she spotted it; Right there in the blue, 'Oraku Bath House'.. The sign couldn't have been more obvious, Suki shrugged and wondered over to it; She could already feel the hot steam in the air that was coming from the inside of the tall wooden-walls that surrounded the different male-and-female rooms.

As she approached the building she read a sign, it said the amount of the small fee people had to pay to get inside. Suki didn't have any money at all left after giving it to Karin yesterday, so she was just going to have to find another way to get in. She poked her head into the door and noticed that the cashier and both the girls cleaning and handing out towels were female; Suki hid behind the door outside the shop again and smirked as an evil idea came to her head. _"Is it sad that I've been wanting to try this for awhile, just for the fun of it..?"_ She thought to herself while forming the simple hand-signs used for the jutsu she had in mind..

Suddenly out of the puff of smoke made by the last handsign, Suki stood there proudly, but she wasn't exactly Suki anymore.. She was actually what the male form of herself would look like; An old and pretty useless jutsu her brother had taught her years ago, it was made for distraction purposes mainly for males, but Suki figured it could work the other way around.. It was the infamous Sexy-No-Jutsu! Used to switch a persons gender on command, usually the person would also become nude, but with some tweaking they could easily surpass this and remain clothed; Which is what Suki chose to do for the obvious reason that she was still out in public..

Her plan was simple, become a guy, act like a guy, flirt with the cashier a bit to get in free, clean up, and leave. Her uniform was pretty much genderless and she could play the part of a male quite well. Suki actually didn't look that bad as a man, she was quite attractive according to some girls walking by who gave _'her'_ a wink and a smile. _'She'_ appeared to be an averaged sized male, a bit skinny perhaps but fit, short choppy black hair and dazzling emerald eyes; She almost looked similar to Sasuke.. Now all Suki needed was to come up with a fake name and the plan would go smooth from there; She looked around for ideas before something came to mind, She would now be known as _'Kuro'_ when male.

"Hn.." Kuro mumbled something under his breath as he walked into the room, the cashier dropped the money she was counting and stared hopelessly at him; He looked over at her and slightly flipped his hair back from covering his left eye as he approached her. "Excuse me miss, has somebody told you today how beautiful you look?" His voice was calm and cool sounding, he gazed at her straight in the eyes instead of most men who instantly turned towards the chest-area. The girl was practically shaking with anticipation, "N-No sir, t-thank you so much!" She shivered with delight as her face lit up with a huge smile. "Please miss call me Kuro.. Sir is such a formal term for a humble man like myself." Kuro smirked and reached out to stroke hair out of her face and tuck it behind her ear; The girl actually turned bright red and fell over, she fainted along with three other girls standing around watching the scene play out.

"Well.. That.. Worked.." Kuro looked around awkwardly and seeing that nobody else was watching he quickly slipped away into the hallway room that lead to the bath houses. Since it was so early, not a lot of people were really there aside from the occasional girl staring at him or male completely not-caring about his existence. He found the big blue door marked 'Male Bath House' and slid the door open, there were only two people relaxing in the warm water right now; Sasuke and a random blonde haired male. Kuro said nothing and quietly slipped into the water for a bit to clean off; He leaned down under the warm pool and shut his eyes to relax and zone-out from the world surrounding him..

When he awoke it was due to a familiar voice speaking, not that of Sasuke but of.. Suigetsu! Kuro kept his eyes shut and remained quiet, even though on the inside Suki was curious as ever to have a little peek at the male; I mean come on, what better chance than this? If Karin was smart she would've thought of this ages ago with the damn Uchiha. After he heard the simple sounds of water-moving and the level of it rising due to another person stepping inside the tub he decided to open his eyes and see if he was correct at guessing the person. Yup, there he was, Suigetsu relaxing in the water as the other blonde male got up and left to the dressing-room; Now it was only the three of them..

Suigetsu stared at Kuro for a moment before shrugging and turning back to Sasuke, "Sleep well? Something like that? Your too quiet you know, things get boring easily." He bobbed his head under the water completely for a moment and shook his head around like a wet dog to let his hair get soaked; Kuro couldn't help but stare like the hopeless-Karin would at Sasuke. "I slept.. Okay? I don't speak when there is nothing to be said.. How did you sleep?" Sasuke actually seemed human for once, his response wasn't completely cold and depressing.. "Heheheh.. You could say it was the best yet, I had Suki cuddled up to me like Karin wishes she could be with you. How pissed would you get if I rubbed that in her face today?" Suigetsu smirked while Kuro turned around the other way to avoid them catching a glimpse of him blushing, Suki wanted to punch him in the face, but her cover would be blown..

"I don't care, I think it would be Suki you'd have to worry about pissing off then, Suigetsu.. Do you really want both girls pissed off all day?" Sasuke almost chuckled at the idea, Suigetsu frowned a bit and nodded, "Yeahh.. You have a good point there.. Karin I've gotten used to, but I'm scared to see Suki-chan pissed off, especially at me." He shivered a bit at the thought of Suki even more pissed than she was when Karin caused her to fall out of the tree before. "Suki-_chan_? When did you two become so close?" Sasuke gave him 'The-Look' and glanced over at Kuro silently; Suigetsu shrugged and smiled, "Why does everyone ask that? Is it so hard to believe I actually can be a good person with relationships? That I care about things other than myself? Ha, people get me and you confused." Suigetsu responded and the two men's conversation went on for a bit before it turned into what they had planned for the day; Kuro grew bored and made his way out of the bath to wrap himself in a towel and leave. Suigetsu and Sasuke both watched as he left and noticed a strange tattoo on his lower back that looked like a scorpion in a box; They thought nothing of it and continued to talk until they had finished cleaning up and were ready to leave..

Kuro was just leaving with nothing but a towel around him when he bumped into another familiar person, Karin. He was shocked to see her and simply moved to the side, "Excuse me.. Miss." He mumbled under his breath and walked past her, she also turned to see who he was and caught nothing but a glimpse of the tattoo and the back of his head as he turned the corner. Karin then proceeded to creeper-stalk Sasuke and offer to wash his back, which he declined and Suigetsu appeared from nowhere only to be hit in the face with a bowl. Kuro didn't witness any of this, but could hear them from the other room as they were being quite loud. He chuckled and quickly slipped behind a corner nobody was around and did the quick hand sign to undo the Jutsu; In a quick puff of smoke, Suki had returned back to her old self..

She was now still dripping wet in a towel hiding behind a corner, she looked around for a second and made her way into the changing room for women. There was only a few random girls there in the back gossiping about the hot guy they saw with the scorpion tattoo; Suki smiled awkwardly and made sure to move her towel around herself to hide the tattoo that was actually hers. She dried off and begun to get dressed before someone calm stomping into the room; A very pissed off Karin who angrily got dressed before stopping when she noticed Suki. "When the hell did you get here!" She looked at her suspiciously while putting her glasses on after she dried her hair..

"Um.. You must not have seen me?" Suki awkwardly shrugged and put on a convincing look, Karin looked satisfied with her answer and backed off to get dressed. "Oh.. Well." She mumbled as she put her jacked on and buttoned it up; By then the random group of girls had left and it was only them left in the room. Suki was having trouble trying to dry off and get dressed without letting Karin see her tattoo, Karin eventually finished getting dressed and left without another word. Suki sighed with relief and let the towel drop to the floor, she was now standing there awkwardly in just her shorts and black bra while she tried to get her shirt to unfold itself properly so she could put it on. She heard a strange noise and looked behind her, she didn't see anything until she turned back around and was suddenly face-to-face with the familiar violet eyes she loved to stare at; But not right now she didn't!

She lunged backwards and would've fallen if it wasn't for the wall behind her that she had somehow forgotten about. She actually didn't scream like she expected herself to, but she was definitely shocked as hell to see the still-dripping-wet male before her with a serious look on his face. "Suigetsu! What the hell are you doing in here?" She twitched and quickly held her shirt over herself out of embarrassment, his eyes actually were locked onto hers instead of on her body though, which was comforting for a moment. "When I woke up today, I was cold; You weren't there.. And besides that, somebody took my toothbrush, was it you?" He gave her a suspicious look as he knelt on the floor in front of her, but still eye-level because she was sitting. "Why the hell would I take your toothbrush? And you looked so peaceful sleeping, I didn't want to disturb you.. But fine, next time I'll wake you up violently! Now get out of here so I can get dressed you pervert!" She kicked at him as he got up and moved away grinning.

"Tooth brush stealer!" He pointed at her accusingly, she couldn't tell how serious he was being, but the entire situation made her want to start laughing but at the same time hide and actually put some clothes on before doing so. "Fine fine fine, I'll leave." He slowly walked out the door and waited just outside for her to finish up, she hesitantly waited a few seconds to make sure he was gone before quickly turning back around and sliding her shirt on; But just before she had finished he poked his head around the doorway curiously and spotted the same tattoo he saw earlier on the male..

He didn't think much of it other than how it was quite odd that they had identical tattoos in the same spot; Maybe it was one of those things going around that he hadn't heard of yet? He figured he could ask later when she was clothed and not pissed about his random-popping-in-appearance. After a bit she emerged from the room, her hair was still a bit wet so she shook her head around like a dog purposely near Suigetsu so that he would be sprayed with the droplets flying off every single strand of hair.

She finally stopped and glared at him, he couldn't help but smile at the blushing-faced wet haired girl in front of him, there was something about when she got mad like this; Not really 'mad' but more of her being irritated with him made him notice how cute she was. She pouted and began to storm off, she had only gotten so far away before he reached out and grabbed her arm to pull her back, he tugged her around the corner and back into the empty room before sitting down and grabbing her tightly in a hug. She hesitated nervously wondering why he did that all of the sudden but quietly wrapped her arms around him and returned the warm embrace.

He slowly pulled her into his lap and held her close, she shivered at his touch when she noticed he was pulling her shirt up slowly, "Sui.. W-What are you doing?" She blushed a bit more and slightly arched her back when he stopped and gave her the same suspicious look from earlier. "Explain this little tattoo here.." He poked at it, which made her shiver and flinch. His eyebrow raised at this, tattoos don't cause reactions like that.. He again poked at her inked flesh, she did the same shivering-twitch but this time made a soft noise to go along with it. "S-Stooop!" She begged him and tried to move away from him, he chuckled and let his fingertips glide across the symbol again, much to her distaste..

"So you have a sensitive spot, Eh, Suki-Chan?" He teased her, she whined and squirmed around at her weakness being messed with. "I'll get you back for this, you just wait.." She groaned as he flicked the symbol on her lower back again, she was getting irritated now and would actually for once rather be bored as hell walking around with Sasuke and the others than stuck like this, even though she was having fun in the back of her mind. "Bahh.. Fine, I'll have fun with this later. Karin is probably already going to bitch at us for taking so long.." Suigetsu smirked and stood up while holding her, he set her down gently and let her resume her usual spot riding on his back with him carrying her. The two left the building like nothing happened aside from Suki noticing the poor cashier from earlier looking around frantically and seeming depressed that her dream boy was nowhere to be found..


	7. An old friends final visit

:::Writers comments:::

Sorry this took so long guys, I've been busy this week! D: I'll be sure to update at least once a week from now on, if I miss one though or I'm late, sorry! w

After the group had met back up at the motel-room they began to talk over where they were headed next; After a bit of talking they had decided they should spend a little more time in this town questioning and getting information. They decided to all split up, aside from Suki and Suigetsu, who technically had to stick together in order for her to walk. Sasuke left without another word, Karin following close behind and Jugo right after as if they were children in a line at school; Suigetsu and Suki joined the line as everyone had went outside again and off in different directions..

Suki looked around silently for a moment before_ 'accidently' _falling off Suigetu's back due to her not really trying to hard to hang on to him. He turned around quickly and blinked a few times in confusion, "Um.. You okay, Suki?" He mumbled while he held his hand out to help her up, with a bit of his help and good balance she stood up on her own. "Yeah, I'm fine. Why don't you go on ahead and ask around about Itachi, I can handle myself for a day.. I don't wanna slow you down." She smiled and tried to assure him she would be fine.

He stared at her with a suspicious look before finally giving in, "Fine.. We all meet back at the room at noon." He sighed as she handed him back his sword, he slid it onto his back like it was before and nodded before walking away; Her smile faded quickly after as she began to half-limp in another direction. Little did she know he had continued to glance over his shoulder at her even when walking away and made sure she was okay.

Suki shrugged and looked around, she knew the meeting point was in this town, but where exactly? It was some sort of bar that they had actually passed by the day before. Her emerald orbs gazed around slowly looking for the familiar sign before they locked onto it, _"There it is! Akiakai Bar.."_ She thought to herself as she slowly limped her way to the door before being stopped by a tall and muscular looking man. "Excuse me little miss, I don't think your old enough to be in here." He grinned at the small girl before him, who proceeded to growl back at him like an angry wolf, "I'm 19 you dipshit! Now get the fuck out of my way." She snarled and clenched her fist, the man could see her obvious anger and decided to move out of the way so she could enter.

The room was warm, humid actually, it gave you that hot and sticky feeling as soon as you entered the door. Heavy scents of alcohol and cigarette smoke filled the air, Suki's lungs felt sick as she limped over and took a seat at the cedar-wood bar. The room was actually quite loud as the drunken idiots stumbled around on eachother and the wannabe badasses puffed black smoke into the air in little rings. This was obviously a nice tourist attraction, because headbands from all the surrounding villages could be seen throughout the room, even a few unrecognizable patterns were around.

"_Why the hell would he pick a place like this?.. Its not secret at all, everyone in the damn village is around here.." _She sunk down on the cold tile-counter and ignored the every-now-and-then whistle from some strange drunk across the room, she noticed she was also one of the few females in the room without a guy either grabbing at her or shielding her; She didn't need protection though, she knew damn well she could handle herself. After a bit of waiting she was about to get up and leave when she heard the oh so familiar slight jingle of a certain keychain.. She smiled and relaxed as a stranger took a seat next to her without a word.

Suki turned to look over the stranger, the familiar black cloak scattered with red clouds made her smile as the male turned his head to look back at her with a grin. "So we meet again, Weasel." Suki closed her eyes as she looked downward for a moment, "You've cut your hair since last we met." He chuckled and motioned for the waiter to bring them glasses of water. "Yeah.. I'll explain that later." Suki groaned with resentment at his statement, he simply laughed and picked up the glass of water set before him by a waiter. He sipped at it before setting it back down gently and turning his entire body towards Suki, she did the same and crossed her arms over her chest.

"You first, Weasel." She smirked, her eyes were still shut as the male in front of her sighed, he quietly activated the rare genjutsu known as the Sharingan, Suki could feel the sudden rush of chakra that burst through the area as this happened, she knew they would have to hurry up before Karin caught on; Quickly her eyes shot open, but they were no longer the usual emerald-green color, now they had lit up bright yellow like gold. Not even a split second had passed after their eyes met did the jutsu-combination begin; the chakra suddenly faded back to nothing again and the two turned back to facing the bar, this time with both their eyes shut quietly.

What these two clever ones had done was combine both their genjutsu to create a small safe house inside their mind where they could intermix thoughts and get into each-others heads, quite literally. The sharingan, combing space-time to create a fake word, and the Dekibuu stabilizing the chakra to cover this secret tunnel they had into eachother's brains. It was almost like a mind-reading jutsu, but as if you were able to go into eachothers heads and share files and memories without using up hardly any chakra or risk of damage to the body.

Before they knew it they were standing in an empty black room standing side by side, both of them content in the dead silence of the space. "Now for your favorite part, Suki-chan." The male turned to his friend and bumped her shoulder, she smiled and shut her eyes while the room around them seemed to begin to melt. The black walls looked like melting paint as the floor somehow began to grow brilliant green grass; slowly but surely the entire scene came together and looked like the center of a deep lush green forest with a hint of that morning fog filling the area. The air was crisp and fresh, the fog gave it that slight sense of a cold feeling around them versus the previously humid bar they were just in..

Her eyes opened again, still the bright gold from before that could pierce the heart of anyone who looked into them; Looking at her made him smile through his usual emotionless facade that everyone in his family seemed to have. "Its been way too long, Itachi-kuuuuuuuuuun!" She turned to him and screamed like a little girl as she lunged forward and hugged him, he laughed at her reaction to seeing him again and returned the hug. The two talked for a bit about where they had been recently traveling around on Akatsuki missions and different places they had seen and such before they decided to sit down by a tree and relax.

Suki shuffled down and sat with her back against the tree, Itachi sat infront of her and sighed as she instantly grabbed at his hair like always and pulled the pony-tail out. "I never understood why you do that." He shut his eyes and let her do as she please, she softly ran her fingers throughout his hair and ruffled it a bit before grabbing a few strands and beginning to braid it. He knew what she was doing and had gotten used to it by now, they had been friends for a few years but hardly got to see eachother in person, so they would use this jutsu to hide away and relax for a bit. Every single time she saw him she had to play with his hair, something about it completely enticed her and at first that was a problem to him; But eventually the cold hearted Uchiha warmed up to the girl to let her do what she wanted, even if it meant treating him like a doll..

"You don't have to understand everything, Itachi.." She twisted and turned the strands of hair into one another to form a tight braid, "But I do have a question that maybe you can help _me_ understand the answer to..?" She stopped for a moment and frowned before untangling the hair to start over, before she could begin the process again Itachi decided to lay back and make himself comfortable with his head in her lap. She poked his forehead and waited for a response, "Ask away." He shut his eyes and put the back of his wrist over his face like people usually do when they lie down; Suki leaned her back against the tree and looked upwards at the brilliant-blue sky she had created, yes it was an illusion, but it sure was a pretty one..

"Well.. To start off.. I wish I could've gotten to know you sooner and spend more time with you, your a great friend to have regardless to the fact that its rare we ever meet.. Your like a big brother to me, Ita-kun.. I've already lost Sasori and Deidara, I'm not sure what I'll do when your gone.. If you and Sasuke do fight.. I don't-" Suki said as much as she could before he cut her off, "What has to be done will be done, Suki.. But if it makes you feel any better, you were one of the best friends I've had. Your understanding and listen well.. I don't know what is going to happen next, but if this is the last time we speak, I want you to know that you made my gloomy days worth while, and I wish you the best of luck with your brother." He moved his arm away for a moment and opened his eyes to smile up at her, her golden-orbs were beginning to get watery at the thought of losing another friend so quickly right after the other..

"Suki, I'm entrusting my little brother to you.. Please, no need for tears." The uchiha frowned, Suki smudged her tears away before they could even fall and stared off to the side quietly, Itachi decided he had to cheer her up somehow, "So tell me.. Who is this Suigetsu character?" He shut his eyes again and resumed his arm-over-face position as before, Suki paused for a moment before realizing now that they had combined their heads, they could literally see into each-others thoughts. "I don't even know why you can see that.. I wasn't thinking about him.." She mumbled while noticing the grin plastered on her friends face, "In the back of your mind, he's been on your mind a lot recently according to what I'm seeing.. Tell your big-brother about him."

He reached out and playfully poked her stomach once more, she giggled and happily sighed, "Well.. He's just one of the members of Hebi traveling with Sasuke." She replied but could tell by the look on his face he wasn't buying it. "And?" Itachi raised a brow at her when her smile suddenly faded quickly and she stared off to the side emotionlessly. "Suki.. Sasori wanted you to be happy, Deidara did too.. And so do I. Don't be afraid to admit your feelings, feelings are something we can't control no matter what kind of a facade we put on. And I can tell yours is especially a Hesitant one." He poked her stomach again to try and make her smile, when it didn't work he proceeded to tickle her until she fell over laughing on her side; He then scooted over and rested his head on her stomach again from the side while she lay in the grass with her hands behind her head smiling.

"Alright, fine.. He's cute, sweet, funny.. But still! Just a simple distraction from my mission." Suki returned to her emotionless stare upwards at the sky, which Itachi could see right through, "Well then if your going to be like that, I'm going to assign you a new mission.. While watching over my brother, I want you also to be happy. Do whatever it takes to make yourself happy in life.. Oh, and just to bring this up again, I need you to distract the group until tomorrow, alright?" He took a deep breath and awaited her responce, which was short sweet and to the point, "..Fine." She muttered after a long pause, there was no use arguing with the weasel, he would always win because he was usually right..

Another hour or so passed of just the two talking and enjoying the company of a friend in the nice quiet space they had created, nobody could disturb them or disrupt this jutsu; Unless another Sharingan or Dekibuu user was around, which to their knowledge nobody was. Finally Itachi stood up and offered his hand to get Suki on her feet as well, the two stood side by side for a moment quietly. _"Don't say goodbye.."_ The words escaped Suki's lips without her even putting in the effort, all she received in response was a nod from her friend as he shut his eyes. Her golden eyes also slowly shut as the room around them began to fade away, the jutsu was being deactivated and soon they would snap back into reality back at the bar from earlier..

Cigarette smoke and the bitter scent alcohol once again filled the lungs that were just a few moments ago full of fresh clean air, although it was all an illusion. Suki shook her head around quickly and opened her eyes just to see Itachi leaving, she didn't turn to say anything or make a comment but instead looked downwards and contemplated what to do next. Suddenly she felt a hot breath on the back of her neck, her entire body shivered at the sudden sensation but she reacted quickly and jabbed the stranger in the stomach with her elbow; The man stumbled backwards laughing and fell over a table, he was obviously intoxicated, she shrugged at this and stood up to leave. Quickly as possible she made her way through the crowd to the door, it was blocked by a huge crowd of drunken idiots so she would have to exit out the back; which meant getting through the entire bar of idiots..

Slowly but surely she made her way out of the bar-section and onto the dance floor where a few couples and other random groups of friends were laughing and messing around; Suki smiled at seeing so many people happy but focused on trying to get away from them. Half-way through her walk she was stopped by the same exact author-stalker she had punched the other day, and broke his foot before that. "God dammit.. You AGAIN?" Suki growled and shoved him away, walking right past him off the dance floor and down a hallway which lead to the bathrooms, 'private-rooms' and the backdoor to the bar. It wasn't actually a usable door but a fire escape-door that said 'do not use' which was easily ignored..

She shoved the door open and stepped outside into the cold dark alleyway, she had no idea what time it was, but it was certainly late in the evening judging by the light outside; She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered for a bit before starting to walk down the empty alleyway back to the main-street. She could hear someone following her, one quick glance back and she noticed her stalker hadn't given up yet.

"S-Suki!" The male cried out to her, she simply ignored him and finally made her way on the main-street where she could see the sun was about to set as the sky was a brilliant pink. The stupid boy still hadn't given up and continued to chase after her even when she had limped half way back to the hotel before having to stop and sigh. "What the hell do you want!" She finally decided to listen to what he had to say, as he approached her his eyes lit up and he smiled, "I see your boyfriend isn't with you! Does this-" He began to speak, but couldn't even finish before the surging pain in his cheek made it welt up bright red as he was thrown backwards from a punch to the face.

"**HE IS NOT MY BOYFRIEND, FOR THE LAST FUCKING TIME, NOW LEAVE ME ALONE!"** She shouted out of anger and began to storm off before bumping into someone and almost falling backwards, she blinked before seeing the familiar face of Suigetsu and realizing maybe he had come to look for her because she was so late. "Oh.. Sui-" She was going to say something before he spoke first, "Where the hell have you been? Who is that guy? Why do you smell like alcohol?" His questions were going a mile a minute before she had to press her finger to his lips to shush him, in return to being silenced he bit her finger playfully; She withdrew her hand and looked at the small drop of blood running down her index finger before glaring at him.

"Now kiss it better!" She shoved the bloody-yet-small wound in his face and waved it around, he grinned and snapped at her again, missing on purpose; She couldn't help but smile at his attempt to bite her the second time and the tiny chomping noise it made when his teeth hit one another. The male she had punched now was standing on his feet angrily glaring at the two, "**BACK OFF BUDDY, SHE'S MINE**!" He waved a fist at Suigetsu but dare not take a step forward because he was obviously bluffing.

"Oh for fucks sake-" Suki was ready to knock the mans lights out before Suigetsu took a step forward and shook his head at her, "No, come on Suki let the man speak." He glanced over at the blue-eyed male and spoke with a sarcastic tone, "Oh.. She's yours?" The other male saw Suigetsu step forward and hesitated but took a step closer as well, "Y-Yeah.. She's mine!" He choked the words out nervously to the male with the sword and the beautiful angel before him. Suigetsu chuckled and turned back to Suki, he slipped his hands around her waist and pulled her up against him roughly, "Well, she's mine now.. I claim her." He gave a full-teeth-showing smirk to the now-furious male.

"**H-HEY!** She just said you weren't her boyfriend, so back off!" He responded in anger and pointed a finger at the two, Suki remained quietly blushing pressed up against Suigetsu's chest watching the scene play out. Suigetsu didn't even hesitate to reply to the man, "Thats because she just wanted you to leave her alone; Which I suggest you do." One arm reached up over his back to grip the handle of his sword, the other male turned a pale white color as if he had seen a ghost and ran off out of fear and defeat; Suigetsu chuckled and returned both his arms to his sides, Suki backed away from him a bit and turned her back to him.

"What's wrong with you?" Suigetsu pulled the waterbottle off his belt like always and sipped at it, Suki crossed her arms over her chest and began to pout. "You do not _claim_ me, I'm not property.. And besides that, I could've easily just knocked the damn guy out and we wouldn't have to do any of this." She huffed while he laughed. "Fine, I wont claim you. I didn't want you anyway." His voice was sarcastic, but still irritated her as she spun around and grabbed him by the shirt collar in a rough grip, "Make up your damn mind!" She pulled him close and glared at him, again their eyes met; Emerald and Violet reflecting off one another..

"_What do you think~?_" His voice was low and soft, something about it made a tingle run up her entire spine as his sharp toothed grin menacingly made him look psychotic. She leaned forward slowly and was about to respond before the moment was ruined by the familiar screeching-voice of their other team member.. Karin.

The two backed away from each-other like nothing happened and prepared to be bitched at. "So close.." Suigetsu thought to himself with a facepalm as he listened to his other female partner chew his ear off..


	8. Cat Fight!

**::: WRITERS COMMENTS.. Oh my god, I'm so sorry this is so late. Its the end of the school year so I was busy with exams and such, but then I tried to post this chapter and forgot my password for the site.. So I did that 'forgot-my-password-thing' but it took them TWO DAYS to send me the new password email.. Gah.. Well anyway, sorry for the wait and now that school is out for the summer I'll hopefully be putting up new chapters a lot quicker than before~! And also, these next chapters will clear up and explain some things, and mini spoiler- be prepared for a flashback. o.0 ::::**

After a few minutes of Karin's constant bitching she had run out of insults, Suki sighed as she had heard enough of this and decided to just go inside. She began limping her way towards the door when Suigetsu came up at her side and lifted her arm around his neck to act as a crutch for her to walk; she smiled and accepted his help. Karin on the other hand growled furiously and followed the two, stomping the entire way to the room..

They had gone inside and gotten settled before Sasuke entered the room with a stack of bento boxes and his emotionless-as-ever facial expression. He passed out the boxes to everyone and decided they would talk about todays findings over the meal. He lifted his head slowly to lock eyes with Jugo, "A few animals saw some strange figures outside a forest clearing earlier today, black and red cloaks.. Thats the only lead I've gotten." He shrugged as he spoke and swallowed down a rice-ball. Sasuke nodded in response and turned his head towards Karin, she was already staring at him longingly and didn't say anything; Instead of snapping her out of it he decided to pass her up and go onto the next person..

The raven spikes of hair swished around as he turned his head, "Suigetsu, did you get anything of use?" He spoke in the same monotone voice to the violet-eyed male he had been traveling with the longest of the three. The sharp toothed male shook his head as a signal of not knowing anything as he chewed his food, meaning he couldn't voice his response. Finally the Uchiha turned to Suki, who had just gulped down a piece of Sushi when he questioned her, "What information, if any, did you get on Itachi?" He spoke before taking a bite of his food.

She paused for a moment to chew before replying, "Make sure your prepared, Sasuke." She suddenly said in a cold-tone of voice which made everyone in the room pause for a minute and wonder what exactly she meant. The coal eyes of the uchiha narrowed at her words, he didn't even have to ask 'what do you mean' before she answered, "If Jugo's lead is correct, Itachi could be found in that area tomorrow.. Are you prepared?" She set down her food for a minute and looked over at the Uchiha, for a moment their eyes met in a heart-stopping way. Something about what she just said was off, it was also strange how she was acting that made even Sasuke uncomfortable- Though he would never show it.

No answer came after her question, everyone just quietly continued eating until the meal was over and they had all stacked the empty boxes in a pile for later cleaning up. Few minutes passed after that before Sasuke stood up without a word to retreat to his room, closing the door before his stalker, Karin, had a chance to follow. Jugo scratched the back of his head awkwardly with a smile, "Well.. Goodnight everyone?" He slowly shifted himself up and disappeared through the other door that lead to his sleeping-area. Karin was completely lost in a day dream while both Suigetsu and Suki slowly snuck past her and took up the last remaining room; When she finally snapped out of this illusion she was left being the one sleeping on the couch.._ (Which she wasn't exactly happy with.)_

Suki and Suigetsu had successfully snuck off into their room, Suigetsu as her crutch, which she suddenly discarded and jumped onto the bed; spreading her arms and legs across it to take up the entire space. "Ha!" She stuck her tongue out at him, in which he returned a glare and sat down on the floor next to the bed. She noticed he didn't seem in a playful mood and crawled to the edge of the bed, resting her head on her arms looking him in the eyes. "What's wrong, Sui?" Her head tilted to the side ever-so-slightly in question, to which he didn't respond but continued to stare at her angrily.

"Whaaat?" She was really curious now, but somehow expected him to jump up and do something to show he was kidding. "My questions from earlier." His eyes shut as he sat with his arms crossed over his chest in a tense position. "I was asking people in the bar if they had seen anything of Itachi Uchiha; thats all." She responded in a serious tone, he didn't move for a few seconds before sighing and opening his eyes again. "I don't know what your hiding, but I hope you start being honest with me soon." She blinked at his statement, but understood what he meant by it.

"I'll explain soon, alright?" She assured him, he didn't really accept this but put on a semi-fake smile as he stood up. She looked up at him wondering what he was planning before he reached over to the lamp lighting the room and tugged the cord, the room went pitch black aside from the subtle moon-light coming in from the window. After a few blinks Suki was able to adjust her eyes to the change in light, just then to notice Suigetsu was no longer standing in-front of her where he was a few seconds ago.

She sat up and glanced around the room until noticing him behind her, laying on the bed facing the other direction. She didn't feel like disturbing him, she figured he was probably not very happy with her lack of explanation for everything. Which she was right, he lay facing the wall staring out the window quietly thinking. _"This whole thing was suspicious at first, she knows something about this whole Itachi deal.. And she claims to be of the Inuzuka clan yet she doesn't have any signs of it aside from sharp nails and teeth.. Just what all is she lying about?" _He got lost in his thoughts until the point of falling asleep, which by then Suki had already lay down and fallen asleep as well..

Morning came too quickly, and the 'screeching' Karin this early was far too much for Suki when she was half awake. "**GET UP, WAKE UP, COME ON LAZY-ASS FUCKING WAKE UP, YOU TOO BITCH!**" Karin burst into the room with a powerful kick to the door, Suigetsu was already awake and sitting up on the bed when she did this; but Suki was having trouble even opening her eyes yet to the morning-light. "Calm the fuck down, are you waking up the entire town?" Suigetsu hissed as he stood up, Karin picked up the pillow his head was just under and smacked it onto Suki's head; seconds after that realizing she might have just opened a gate to hell.

Before Karin had the chance to move the pillow from her she reached out and grabbed onto it, her razor-like nails tearing right through it; now Karin only held onto a pile of shredded fabric and some feathers. Suigetsu stepped back and watched as he waited for the two girls to break into a fight to bring morning chaos.

Karin froze for a moment and stared down at the mangled bits of feathers and fabric to watch Suki's movement, but before she could tell what was going to happen next she was met by a painful kick to her jaw that sent her flying upwards only to smack into the roof and tumble back down. Suki remained in this balancing-on-her-hands stance on the bed for a few seconds after just to smirk at Karin's shocked reaction to this. "**YOU WANNA FIGHT BITCH!**" She shouted at the top of her lungs and jumped up with fists clenched, Suki shut her eyes and smiled, "How wrong of me would it be to hurt a poor-weak princess?" Her voice was sarcastic right before she was knocked across the room by a sucker-punch to the stomach.

"Cheap shot.." Suki growled and rested on one knee, making sure to try and keep her good leg always the one she landed on. Karin balled her fists and charged towards Suki, who in response jumped up to block her; Karin charged with a raised fist but at the last moment slid on her foot to kick Suki off balance, sadly it failed as Suki jumped upwards to avoid this. Karin blinked in shock as she quickly tumbled to the side to avoid Suki stomping downwards to crush her skull, Suigetsu was standing on the side just watching the scene play out.

Her glasses almost fell off her face as she stood up and lunged forward again to strike at Suki, this time she hit her directly in the cheek- causing her to fly backwards into the wall on the same side of the room as Suigetsu. Suigetsu stared over at the seemingly-fainted female but before he could say anything she had opened her eyes with a glare at her opponent. The almost-fuschia haired female fixed her glasses to her face and took a stance with her hand on her hip, "Well." She barely had the chance to get the words out before she was met with Suki face-to-face and an evil smirk plastered on her. She just barely had the chance to move before the other females fist crashed into the wall behind her, causing it to break apart and crumble; leaving a huge gap in the building on the corner of the top-floor..

Karin twitched out of fear and shock, people outside the building were looking inside through the new '_giant-window_' that had been made. She felt a shiver run up her spine before a pit of anger growing into a knot deep within her stomach; the two girls again lunged at eachother and exchanged blows, Karin was taking a bit more hits than she could handle. By the time they had continued to punch, kick, bite and scratch eachother they had jumped outisde the building and began to fight in the street; which caused quite a scene. At this point they didn't even bother using jutsu, just pure rage-power. "_CAT FIGHT!_" One male screamed from the crowd of people that were collecting, mostly younger males watching the two crazy women go at it.

Quickly they had locked hands and were pressing against eachother in the classic-shove test, whoever was stronger would shove the other onto the ground and beat the pulp out of them. The two clenched hands and shoved, it was a pretty even battle seeing as how neither of them had an advantage at this point with Suki not being able to stand on both legs and Karin being weaker when it came to straight up power.. But that would soon be over as Karin's weak arms began to give out, she was quickly thrown over and beaten in the face repeatedly by a fury of fists. It honestly looked like a playground fight between two little girls, but the crowd around them just kept cheering for the fight to continue. Karin was able to guard herself from most of the hits by covering her face with her arms, but Suki was far from done with her yet..

About five minutes later, more heavy-breathing, punching and clawing, the two were nearly exhausted and looked torn-up. Now finally Suigetsu had managed to find Jugo and call him to stop the fight that he dare not come in between, only did they arrive on the scene to a crowd of people and their two female teammates ripping one another to shreds. Now they were both on their feet again a few steps away from each other, ready to lunge forward when the time was right. Seconds had passed before the slightest foot movement triggered Jugo to thrust forward and catch both blows the girls had thrown; he held each of their fists against his hands as he stood between them. "Stop you two, calm the hell down." He grunted at the strength being pressed on both sides of him.

"I'm not done with this fucking princess, get out of my way or I'll slaughter you both." Suki growled angrily, something about her had changed now and she looked extremely serious; Karin blinked with shock and the high-level of chakra change that just happened, she stepped back and moved more behind Jugo to hide. Jugo turned his body towards Suki now and looked her in the eyes. The pure stare of bloodlust and the bruised female before him triggered his inner-killing-impulse that he tried so hard to avoid.

"**J-JUGO'S IMPULSES, S-SUIGETSU GO GET SASUKE!**" Karin shouted and grabbed onto the now-turning-grey arm of Jugo as he chuckled an evil laugh. Suki smirked back at him and shifted her stance to prepare for the fun fight ahead, meanwhile Suigetsu ran around frantically trying to find Sasuke to calm Jugo down before everyone was in danger. The crowd was pleased up until seeing Jugo intervene, which they at first hissed and booed at before running scared from his murderous laugh and stare.

By the time Suigetsu and Sasuke had returned, Jugo was on the ground taking a beating from the quick-fists of Suki pounding him farther into the dirt, the entire time shrieking a menacing laugh. Jugo didn't seem very damaged by this, but he couldn't find an opening to return a hit or even to get away from her. Sasuke stared at the scene with just the slightest shock at how easily Suki could keep him down like that with already how damaged she was. Suigetsu stared in awe at the strength and murderous-intent of the female before him, his own bloodlust began to make him cringe before Sasuke interrupted the fight..

In the blink of an eye he was there, that damned Uchiha standing between the two keeping the blade of his sword pressed firmly against Suki's fist, the only thing stopping her from throwing another punch to Jugo's face was the thin-but-strong metal. "Both of you calm down." He uttered in the emotionless tone everyone had gotten used to, Karin was on the sidelines drooling at how cool and quickly Sasuke had stopped the battle. Suigetsu was somehow disappointed at not watching the battle continue. Suki and Jugo both took a deep breath, Suki stepped back some and Jugo got up as the grey-skin faded away from him..

"_Fucking Uchiha.._" Suki mumbled and considered directing her still-boiling anger at him, but she knew it would be against orders and not a good choice. By now she was exhausted, she had used more chakra than planned even when she wasn't doing jutsu; She fell forward onto her knees and sat for a minute staring at the ground. Suigetsu was still a bit irritated at her from yesterdays happenings, but he couldn't help but walk over to help her up. She stared up at him blankly for a second before looking back over at Sasuke, she slowly leaned forward and entered the same bowing-position as before when they first met. "I apologize for my actions, it was wrong of me to fight with any of you. Please forgive and forget this." Her voice was very empty and sounded as if she was a programmed machine, still Sasuke and the others nodded quietly as Suki lifted her head back up..

Suigetsu grabbed her hand and helped her up, she stumbled a bit and almost fell onto him before she could actually stand correctly. Sasuke sighed at the new-setback and turned to Suigetsu, his coal colored eyes met the violent ones as he spoke, "Take everyone to the hospital, but be done in an hour and meet me back here." He didn't wait for a response before turning to walk away, Karin wanted to proclaim she was fine and follow, but she actually was pretty hurt. The three of them stared at one another for a moment before all following in a group to the nearby hospital they were at before..

"SUKI-CHAAAAN! .. And, Oh my, what a group we have here! You brought your friends again!" The familiar voice of the nurse from before rang in everyones ears as they entered the waiting room of the infirmary. It was the girl from before, Yuki. She shuffled across the room to them with a smile, Suki returned the smile. "We had a little mishap.. Fix us up?" She scratched the back of her head and avoided explaining what really happened..

The bright eyed female pranced over to a counter and grabbed a clipboard, she scribbled something down _(perhaps their names and such)_ and set the clipboard back down. She hit a small red button on the wall and soon two other nurses emerged from seemingly nowhere, one of them lead Karin to a room and the other lead Jugo away. "I'll be your nurse, Suki!" Yuki smiled, her golden-orange eyes were bright and cheery as ever as she lead her familiar friends down the hall to the _'coincidentally'_ same room as before..


	9. More hospital troubles

Suki jumped up onto the table again with a bit of help from Suigetsu, he then took a seat in one of the older metal chairs on the other wall and set his blade down leaning against the same wall. Yuki grabbed some bandages and healing ointment from the medical supply cart and began to clean the smaller cuts with cotton and some burning-liquid that stung like a bee. "Would you like to explain what happened now, Suki? _And any updaaates?_" She coughed and gave her the _'hint-hint'_ look to refer to her and suigetsu, Suki smiled awkwardly and shook her head. "Well-" She was about to speak before being cut off by the male. "Little miss fighter here caused some trouble and got herself hurt." He mumbled while he kept his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes on the floor.

Suki glared across the room at him before rolling her eyes and turning back to the nurse, "Sui is just pissy lately." She huffed and tried not to laugh at seeing his sudden-death-glare at her out of the corner of her eye. "Oh.. Well.." Before Yuki could get a single word in the two broke into argument. "Your the one who wont explain anything to me!" He suddenly shouted and stood up, Suki jumped off the table she was sitting on as well and returned the scream, "Why can't you just trust me for now?" her response quieted him for a few seconds before they again went back and forth yelling and getting closer until they were right up next to each other face-to-face.

"Oh how cute! Your first fight! They only get better from here! Each one makes you stronger~ Teehee, thats what My boyfriend says after we fight and makeup, then its all just kisses and hugs and fun!" The other female giggled and squirmed around with delight at the two yelling at one another, they both got silent after her comment though and stared awkwardly for the next moment or so before backing off. Both of them were blushing lightly at what Yuki had said and both of them returned to where they were sitting before without another word.

Yuki giggled as she finished cleaning out the cuts and scrapes on Suki, "U-Um, I can see you have a few other injuries I can't simply patch up, and how is your leg doing? I hate to bug you about it because you told me not to ask, b-but.. If you give me your information and let me write it down here in my logs, I can actually do medical-jutsu now! I'm still learning, but I think I can fix you up a bit more, and trust me, the logs are completely private, I'll make sure of it!" She nervously tried to convince the female, Suki was hesitant but nodded in agreement. She figured it couldn't be any too-revealing questions or anything harmful to her mission..

"O-Okay!" Yuki smiled with delight, she was excited to try out her medical jutsu on a real patient, which she really wasn't even supposed to be doing. She quickly spun around and grabbed a clipboard, flipped through a few pages before scribbling something down and turning back to Suki. "Okay, simple stuff first.. Full name, Age, Birthday, Blood type." The brown haired girl looked at her over the clipboard, Suki paused for a moment before answering her. "Suki Inuzuka.. Nineteen, March Fourth, and bloodtype is B."

Suigetsu and Yuki's head jerked up at her response, they both looked shocked for some reason. Suki blinked a few times before looking at them, "Uh..? What?" She questioned but got no answer for a few more seconds. "Y-Your 19! Whoa!" Yuki blinked as she slowly wrote down her information, "Yeah.. How old did you think I was?" Suki twitched at them being so overly shocked, "My guess was 16.." The other female mumbled and finished writing down that portion of the information. Suigetsu tilted his head to the side in question and continued to give her that '_go-on'_ look, to which she shrugged.

"_How much else is she hiding! She's 19! She looks so much younger.. I guess she really kept herself fit or something.."_ Suigetsu was thinking to himself as he leaned back in his chair and slid down a bit to listen to what other questions the nurse would ask. "Alrighty, what village are you from and what rank are you? Oh, and do you have or did you have any serious childhood illnesses that should be on hospital records?" Yuki looked up from her writing and saw the change in expression on Suki's face.

"Born in the leaf, but legally not registered for any ninja village. I actually grew up in a non-ninja town called Kei located outside the sand.. My rank is S-Class criminal, and I have had, and still have what some know as dekibuu. It is not contagious and I would prefer if you keep that out of your records, regardless to it being private." Her tone of voice changed back to its more serious and calm state, Suigetsu blinked and listened intently to her speaking, Yuki's attention was perked to question her further but really figured she shouldn't. She was now a bit uneasy around Suki after hearing this, but this didn't change them being friends, she was still the exact same person as before.

The nurse finished writing down the information, leaving out a few things for everyones good and stood up, she nodded to them that she would be right back and left the room with the sheet of paper. Suigetsu sat up and turned his head to Suki, but before he had the chance to say something she already began to speak.. "Surprised, are you? I don't see why, my age should have been obvious, and the other stuff doesn't really matter." She shrugged and refused to look him in the eyes, his purple orbs narrowed at her last comment for a moment before he found a way to get back at her.

"Nah, not really.. I mean you do have the underdeveloped body of a 16 year old girl, and you act like your 12 sometimes." He tried not to sound sarcastic to freak her out even more as he yawned and leaned back again before getting smacked in the face with the clipboard from earlier; she had actually thrown it fast enough to hit him before his body could liquidize like usual..

"**UNDERDEVELOPED BODY?** _ACT LIKE I'M 12!_ THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN?" She growled and looked for something else to smack him in the face with while he held his hand over his mouth and stared at the now-broken clipboard on the floor with all the scattered papers. "J-JOKING, JOKING.." He assured her with fear that she was going to continue to throw things at him again.

He kept his eyes on a tray of needles off to the side and hoped she didn't decide to throw those at him too, she sat back down on the table and crossed her arms over her chest with a loud annoyed sigh. "Do you enjoy pissing me off?" She growled under her breath, he moved his hand away from his mouth and smiled innocently, "Actually.. Yes." He couldn't help but enjoy her violent temperament and bloodlust, something about it was exciting to him.

After hearing his response she turned her head towards him to possibly prepare to throw something else at him until noticing she apparently broke the clipboard over his face and actually made his mouth bleed in the process. She blinked and lowered her arms from her chest as a sign of letting her guard down, she relaxed and frowned, "Sorry, did I really hit you?" She felt bad that she didn't quite pick up on his sarcasm as quick and got angry so easily, which was something she tried to usually avoid..

"Doesn't bug me one bit.." He smirked sadistically and leaned forward slightly, her eyebrow raised in question as she stood up and made her way over to him before leaning down and staring at him face-to-face. The now so familiar bright emerald eyes met the violet ones in harmony. But in Suigetsu's mind he was questioning what she was going to do- right before she leaned forward and tilted her head slightly closer to him..

His reflexes wanted him to move away but he forced himself to remain still and await her next move, his face was already turning a light pink but he remained silent. She ran her tongue across his bottom lip to lick the blood away and backed away from him, she grinned at his blushing face and went back to her previous sitting spot on the table without a word to wait for Yuki to return.

He sat there stunned for a minute before shaking it off and glaring at her with the familiar _'thats-all?' _look on his face, she stuck her tongue out at him right as the nurse returned to the room with her usual bright smile. "Well, looks like I didn't interrupt anything this time.." She coughed jokingly while Suki and Suigetsu both grinned and tried not to laugh at the _if-she-had-only-walked-in-here-a-moment-earlier _thought in both of their minds. Yuki noticed the odd giggling and kept to herself- still wondering what exactly did just happen..

She shrugged the thought away and waddled over to Suki, "Um.. I'm actually gonna need you to change into one of these crappy hospital things, S-Sorry, its policy." She frowned and held up the traditional pale blue open-hospital gown that tied in the back with one little string that was paper thin. Suki groaned with displeasure at having to wear one of the damn things, but she would do whatever she had to to get herself healed quickly and out of there.

Suigetsu's eyebrow perked up as a devilish grin slowly grew on his face, Suki could see this from the corner of her eye and crossed her arms over her chest in disagreement. "I'm not gonna wear-" Before she could finish talking everyone in the room was interrupted by another male nurse barging in unexpectedly. The door swung open quickly as he entered and smacked the wooden-barrier right into Suigetsu. "O-Oh, sorry, didn't know this room was occupied! S-So sorry!" He then quickly left as soon as he came, dragging a bloody beaten patient behind him..

Suki was suddenly struck still, her entire body froze up in shock at the sight of the patient, someone from deep within her past that she thought was dead- had just walked by. "R-Ren?" she silently whispered, her thoughts escaped her lips as her mind became overly clouded with thoughts and memories. She had only caught the slightest glimpse of the 'stranger' but she knew it had to be her former friend..

"S-Suki-chan? Do you know them?" Yuki leaned over towards her in question, but got no response from the shell-shocked girl. She only snapped back to herself at the sound of Suigetsu's groan as he slammed his hand against the door to pry it away from his face. Her head snapped to attention as she stared over at him, he was dripping water from his head liquidizing in defense while he mumbled something angrily.

"Sui.." She mumbled the short-version of his name that she had somehow nicknamed him with- this caught the boys attention. "Fine, fine." He mumbled and stood up with a stretch, "I'll leave you two to whatever you have to do." He watched Suki from the corner of his violet orbs as he left the room to go refill his water bottle and give the female some privacy.

"I'll face this way, just tell me when your done and I'll heal you up super quick!" The nurse quickly spun around and began doing paperwork as always. "You sure have a lot of things to write down with this job, don't you?" Suki mumbled as she hesitantly began to undress so she could put on the odd hospital gown. "Yeah, its really not that fun of a job as I first thought.. But its still pretty fun! Hehehehehh.. Especially now since I learned new healing techniques and got that promotion, imagine all the cute guys I get to watch undress and put my hands all over them-" She stopped mid sentence before she embarrassed herself further by ranting..

Suki stood there twitching before coughing awkwardly then beginning to giggle, "Your such a perv.. I thought you had a boyfriend?" She finished tugging her shorts off and slipped the thin hospital gown over her frontside before sitting back down. "Oh, him, yeah we broke up again! Fourth time in the past month~" She spoke as if it was nothing, Suki tapped her shoulder as a signal of her being done; Yuki spun back around again with a smile. "He'll be back.. I just gotta make him jealous again is all." She smirked with evil thoughts running through her mind as she carefully formed a handsign.

"Well, whatever works.." Suki wished she wouldn't have that creepy smile across her face while she healed her. She looked like a mad scientist with the glowing chakra-filled hands and menacing grin. Before she knew it she could feel the process begin to work. In her mind she kept wondering why she had never bothered to learn any type of medical jutsu, then again she was usually with someone who could already. Come to think of it, that bitch Karin is a medic, and she didn't just heal her damn leg earlier! Now this.. Means war!

"Suki, all done! You should be able to walk on your leg now, its not completely fixed but should feel a lot better. Did I do good? This is my first time doing this.." Yuki eagerly waited her reply as the other female stood slowly and kicked her foot forward a few times to feel the muscles in the leg working perfectly again. "Damn, your really good at that, Yuki. Its like it never even happened." She was actually a bit surprised at how well the female healed for her first time.

"Whoa, nice tattoo.. Sorry, couldn't help but notice it." Yuki was staring at the inked scorpion on Suki's lower back, it was left noticeable because of the open hospital gown. "I saw some guy at the hot springs with that same one.. Are you in a club or something?" She asked curiously while Suki tried her hardest to keep her composure and not laugh awkwardly. "Uh.. Lets just say this used to be popular awhile ago..?" She made up an excuse again, Yuki nodded happily and believed her without any further questions.

"Well then Suki-chan, your all done! And as much fun as it is having you around, I really hope I don't see you for a while.. At least, not in the hospital because your hurt." The nurse smiled, Suki returned the smile as she left the room to leave Suki to get redressed and such. Suki slipped the hospital gown off and began to put her clothes back on before she heard the door knob turning. _"Dammit..!" _She mumbled to herself and rushed to pull her shirt on before the door opened- almost successful, but just failing by a second as the door swung right open..

She had barely gotten the shirt over her head before Suigetsu walked in as If it was nothing, she quickly yanked the shirt on all the way and growled at his barging in. "_Damn, missed it.._ I mean, oh, sorry for walking in like that, forgot." His voice was full of sarcasm as he shut the door behind him with his foot; He then stepped towards Suki slowly. She was going to yell at him but didn't have the chance before he was hovering over her- standing much too close for comfort.

"Eh?" She had to look up at him just slightly seeing as how he was barely taller than her, he leaned forward slightly and pressed his forehead against hers like they had seemed to do lately out of habit. "I need to talk to you about-" He couldn't even finish talking before the moment was ruined by their loud-mouthed team mate storming down the hallway, both of them knew she was about to knock the door down and bitch at them for taking so long. "Every fucking time!" He took a step back and face palmed, Suki couldn't help but laugh as Karin kicked the door open with an angry growl..


	10. Explaining her past

"What the hell always takes you two so fucking long!" Her glasses glared from the light overhead, making her eyes unable to be seen by the two. Suki stretched a bit and smiled, "I see your feeling better, princess." She smirked at the irritated woman, who simply returned a snarl to her in response. Suigetsu sighed and picked up his sword that was previously propped up against the wall.

He glanced over at Suki standing up perfectly fine and shrugged as he walked past Karin out of the room. Suki frowned, _"Is he still mad..?" _she got lost in thought and followed him out of the room- completely ignoring Karin's bitching about them taking so long..

"Don't fucking ignore me!" Karin screeched and walked alongside Suki, the group met up with Jugo at the door and left the hospital building together to find the meeting point with Sasuke. They were about fifteen minutes later than planned, but when they got there Sasuke didn't seem to be in a major rush like always. Actually, he was casually sitting on a pile of stacked boxes resting.

"Well you don't seem too pissed, what the hell was Karin's problem?" Suki mumbled and glanced at the female from over her shoulder. Karin glared back at her and began to pick up her speed, walking past Suki with a shoulder bump and approaching Sasuke. "Well what-" She began to speak, but was stopped mid sentence when Sasuke stood up and turned to face the others. "You took too long, I've already gone ahead into the first base up past these woods, its not very far. You are to wait outside for me." Without even giving them a chance to reply the clone poofed away in a cloud of smoke.

"Jeez, this guy always rushing around.." Suigetsu's arms went above his head as he stretched, the group walked along together outside of the village and began to follow the path through the forest. "He has a reason for rushing Suigetsu, this whole thing with Itachi means a lot to him. Show some damn respect you blockhead." Karin snapped at the male, he simply rolled his eyes in responce, "I had a brother too you know, family isn't a really big deal.. I bet everyone here has siblings, right?" He turned to the others and began to walk backwards as he spoke to them..

Jugo shook his head and just kept walking with the group, admiring a nearby bird or two, Suigetsu turned to Suki, "Well, Jugo doesn't have siblings but you do, right?" She blinked at his comment and smiled, "Yeah, I've got a bitch for a sister and a cute little brother." She held up two fingers and smiled, Karin gave her a suspicious look, Suki noticed and frowned. "The hell is wrong with you, Princess?" She smiled at Karin's glare everytime she was called 'princess'..

Karin huffed and crossed her arms over her chest, "I'm just saying you guys should be more considerate of what Sasuke's gone through.." She defended her wannabe-boyfriend, this time Suki was the one to roll her eyes at the female before stopping and looking off to the right. "Hey, we'll stop here, thats the pathway to the base, he said to wait outside.." As she spoke the others listened and stopped..

Suigetsu sat next to a nearby rock and sipped at his waterbottle, Suki climbed onto the rock and sat ontop of it while the others simply stood there infront. Everyone stood there in silence for a moment to take on the surroundings before Suigetsu spoke, "I wonder if Sasuke's gonna be okay.." he mumbled, everyones attention turned to the male to listen. "What are you getting at?" Karin responded while looking down at the male, "What if he gets a hit on the first akatsuki hideout?" While Suki listened to the conversation she stared up at the sky and counted the clouds..

"You think Itachi is hiding there?" Jugo joined in, Suigetsu sipped at his water before pausing, "I said 'what if' didn't I?" He smiled a bit sadistically, "Anyway, Itachi's supposed to be a really tough guy, right?" The group looked concerned for a moment, "Sasuke would never lose to someone like.." Karin stuttered with a loss of confidence. The males violet eyes shut for a moment, "Maybe we should start thinking about a worst-case scenario.." After hearing this Suki sat up and looked down at the group to listen in more closely..

Karin looked sad for a moment before getting tense and speaking in her stern voice, "I'll check what's going on inside from here!" She began to focus her chakra detecting skills, "If anything happens, we're going inside!" She commanded, Suigetsu's head perked up at this, "Huh! What's with you all the sudden? When it comes to Sasuke, you really get your panties in a bunch!" Karin wasn't happy with his response, she jolted forward and fixed her glasses, the sun causing a glare across them as always while her face began to glow bright red with embarrassment.

"Y-Your wrong! I-I don't get my panties in a... Y-You wanna fight, y-ya son of a bitch! She stuttered with anger, Jugo ignored this as always while Suki tried not to giggle, "In that case, I'll ask the birds to scout the area in order to find any approaching enemies." His statement was straight to the point when he finally did speak up again, Suigetsu was shocked for a moment before looking off to the side with a sarcastic smile. "Geez.. I can't believe you guys.. Always so serious." He spoke before getting kicked in the side of the head softly by the girl above him.

"They're concerned about a comrade, chill, at least we're all resting now and we'll see what happens next." Suki smiled and brought her feet up onto the rock with her until she was now sitting indian-style as if about to meditate. "Tch.. Whatever." He frowned at being kicked and being told what to do, Suki looked down at him with a slight glare. "Are you still mad at me?" She asked bluntly, to which he simply nodded and refused to look at her. Jugo and Karin decided not to interrupt the talk for once and simply sat on the ground to listen..

"Fine, you know what, we have time, who here wants to finally do formal introductions?" Suki stood up ontop of the rock and threw her hands into the air, "Hello world! Thy name is Suki Inuzuka, I am 19 years old and a kunoichi of no village, a student under one of the greatest puppetmasters- and artists of all time! My favorite food is fish and I hate curry!" She shouted into the sky, Jugo and Karin just stared at her blankly as she sat back down in the same position as before.

"Well then.. I can see by your lack of response, Suigetsu, that that wasn't what you meant, fine." The emerald-eyed female smiled, "Story time! Well, years ago in the hidden leaf village, Tsume Inuzuka found out she was pregnant with a beautiful baby girl. Sadly something went wrong, she would constantly have nightmares about the child being cursed, something was wrong, she couldn't sleep at all and became cranky.. This drove her husband insane with her just being a bitch! Well, eventually the child was born with no problems.. Then a bit after, another beautiful baby girl by the name of Hana, and even more after, a young boy who would be known as Kiba. These are my younger siblings I mentioned before, well, on with the story.. Before I was old enough to attend school, my mother's nightmares returned and drove her mad.. She was convinced I was a demon." Suki paused to think before she shook her head and continued with a false-smile..

"My mother hated me, she wanted to get rid of me, she saw me as a useless, lazy child.. My sister was younger and yet she had already began to show strength, when I was weak.. My mother decided she would throw me away, but my father wouldn't have this.. Sadly, Tsume is a scary woman, and will not take no for an answer.. My mother sold me to an underground slave-trader and pray she never saw my face again.. I believe thats the reason my father later left, he felt as if he should've saved his first born.. But on a lighter note, I found myself in a strange non-ninja village somewhere between the sand and the leaf, there I was put up for adoption, well really it was for sale, but adoption was what eventually happened." Suki looked back down for a minute to see if anyone was still listening to her ramble, and apparently they were, quite intently, they seemed interested.. And so she continued..

"I was adopted into the Hara family, which unknown to me was the village leader and her husband, plus they had another daughter who was my age. She didn't like me much, her name was Lea.. She actually hated me, for no real reason, I think she was jealous.. Anyway, I grew up in that village, peaceful and happy until I found out a horrible secret.. Apparently this village was what some would say cursed, it really wasn't a curse but a disease.. It was called Dekibuu, it affected anyone who came into the village, but for some reason didn't bother people who were born there, I guess they were immune from it.." Suki could feel her veins pulsing as she talked about a touchy subject, yet she continued further..

"Seeing that I wasn't born in the village, my step-mother feared I would become infected and die, instead something worse happened.. I'm not sure if it was my presence or something else, but something had triggered the disease to stop laying dormant inside the natural-born villagers.. Everyone began dying. Villages in the surrounding area heard of this and blocked our village off, they built huge walls around us and left us to die.. Thats when one of the researchers in our village found the original host, a terribly mean old woman who they say created the disease for biological warfare.." Karin shifted her position but continued to listen to Suki speak, at the same time watching chakra levels around them..

"They tried to kill the woman but she wouldn't die, she was actually controlling the disease and could speed up the process tenfold and make you die within minutes, everyone began to kiss ass to the old woman and beg for their life, the village leader, my step-mom even tried to make a deal with the woman. The woman said she was dying and angry, she had spent her whole life creating the perfect weapon and now anyone she tried to 'bless' with this weapon would simply catch the disease and die.. Then she heard about me, a young child, much life left to live, and a perfect host to continue and let her weapon live on.. She wanted to make me the new host."

"In exchange for making me the new host, she would stop everyone else from dying, so long as I agreed to take on the nasty job she had. I agreed, I was feeling brave and wanted to be accepted by the village as the hero, ya know? Get the glory and shit.. Well, something went horribly fucking wrong.. Some dumbass didn't agree with this deal and tried to kill the old hag, she had already begun to infect me with the nasty disease when the process was interrupted, out of rage she broke the deal and killed everyone anyway- and still left me with the infection in my right eye."

"I was angry, she had killed my step family and all my friends, the whole village was now dying and I didn't know how to control this new power.. She tried to explain but I wouldn't listen, I tried to kill her myself, she was already weak and old so it wasn't too hard, she smiled in death and her last words were something about the perfect eye.. I didn't listen at the time, I was blind with rage and just confused as all hell.. Thats when something else happened, when I killed the old woman and took on the job of being the new host, my appearance changed.. It became like hers, emerald eyes, silver hair, well, only the front part.. My entire self changed.."

"So thats why you don't have the Inuzuka markings on your cheeks, right?" Karin spoke up, Suki nodded and touched her cheek with her hand before going on, "I decided to leave the village, but on my way out I ran into some survivors, my best friend, Mako, another kid named Riku and my step-sister, Lea.. They had hidden in a old run down store and kept away from the whole thing. We decided to travel together and find a new village to live in or something- we were all just scared and I was in a lot of pain, it felt like my eye was going to fall out.." Suki blinked a few times to stop herself from going into flashbacks of her younger days..

"Well, the next part is a lot to explain, so I'll just say we we're captured by a research team from another village and examined to see if we were infected, we were held there for two years before we escaped on a lucky chance. Riku and Lea went separate ways, I haven't seen them since that day, but Mako and me traveled together to the sand village. We stayed outside the sand for quite a while living in a cave, stealing food and anything we needed from passing by travelers..

"Eventually we started stealing ninja scrolls and school books, we taught eachother ninjutsu and practiced for days.. One day I even stole a puppet-scroll, thats when my life's ambition kicked in and I wanted to be a great puppet-master ninja, Mako was more into the whole healing thing because she liked to help people, so she wanted to be a medic.. Sadly it was my fault she would never reach that dream.." Suki sighed, she could feel her eyes slowly begin to get more and more watery..

"Mako spent too much time around me, being the host of the Dekibuu, and she contracted the disease.. She later died from it.." Suki blinked and looked down, Karin scooted back a bit, "S-She spent too much time with you? Are you saying we could get infected with this shit too!" Suki shook her head with a smile, "No, that was a long time ago when I was young and had no idea how to control it, now that I've gotten older and stronger I know how to contain it.." Karin relaxed again, "Well.. Good.. So, your a puppet master, with some other kinda weird genjutsu, and your an inuzuka? Fuck woman, what can't you do?" The other female snarled, feeling a bit jealous.

"Haha, sadly no, I have no idea what kind of jutsu the Inuzuka clan uses and I don't have a dog.. Its really just a name, the only thing my mother gave me was sharp claws, teeth and higher senses.. I've never trained with any of it though so I'm pretty much the most useless inuzuka ever. I shouldn't even be considered one seeing as how I have nothing to do with them.. Plus the Dekibuu isn't really something to be used for combat, its too difficult to control.." Suki scratched at the rock she was sitting on..

"But isn't it like in your blood to know things from your family or something?" Suigetsu blinked, Suki shook her head, "Being born to a family means nothing if you aren't raised with them to learn from them, its as if an Uchiha was born around no other Uchihas.. They would probably never even activate their Sharingan, because theres nobody to teach them how." She responded, the others nodded to signify they understood..

"Well, is that enough background story for you, Suigetsu?" Suki glared down at him, he shook his head, "Explain that tattoo now." He smiled up at her, she blushed lightly and knew she couldn't avoid this one. She sighed and figured it would be best to be blunt, "Much like my arm.. It was from Sasori-sama, that is the marking placed on all his puppets, and his subordinates for that matter. Its like a branding, I was his student and part of me is created by him, therefor I bear the mark of the scorpion." She smiled, almost proud-like, Suigetsu stared off to the side with a slight bit of jealousy.

"Basically its a tattoo from your ex boyfriend?" Karin smiled with a smart remark, Suki clenched her fists and jumped up on top of the rock again, "ITS NOT LIKE THAT YOU STUPID BITCH!" She was ready to knock her lights out before Karin's eyes widened, "S-Sasuke.." She mumbled, which caught everyones attention quickly..

"There's suddenly a really big chakra source near Sasuke, lets go NOW!" Karin jumped up as did the others, they all took off running after Karin's lead. Suigetsu ran along side Suki and bumped shoulders with her softly, she turned to look at him with a slightly irritated glare, he smiled to signify he was no longer mad, she returned the smile with a light shade of pink glowing on her cheeks. "Would you two stop flirting and hurry up?" Karin growled back at the two as she sped up, they both rolled their eyes and chased after her until they had reached the outside of the cave Sasuke was in.

"Come on, this way," Jugo lead the way inside as they all entered the cave with a loud pounding as they ran.. Karin ran ahead of Jugo eagerly, he made space for the hurried woman to go ahead as Suigetsu began to call Sasuke's name, hoping for a response, "Sasuke!" He shouted into the cave as they approached a figure standing in an empty room.. _"Thank god.."_ Karin thought to herself with a smile as they walked up to the male..

"I told you not to make a move until you received my orders." The uchiha turned to glare at his approaching team, everyone stepped forward a bit and stopped. "We were worried because Karin said she could feel someone else's chakra." He smiled as he spoke, Sasuke didn't move while the others looked around.. "Feathers?" Karin questioned as she watched the black objects float around slowly..

"_Itachi.. Will this be your final battle?_" Suki thought to herself with a sad look in her eyes as she watched one of the feathers float near her, she held out her hand and caught it softly, she stared at it for a moment before sliding it into her pocket. Sasuke began to walk towards the entrance to the cave they just came in, "Come with me. We're leaving." He said sternly and left the cave, everyone followed in sync as always, Suki looked back at the feathered cave floor and sighed before following the others..

Suigetsu looked back over his shoulder at her, he noticed she looked sad and stopped walking for a moment so she would bump into him and snap back into reality, she looked up at him and faked a smile, he returned the plastic smile and began to walk off after the others again.. This time she ran up to him and grabbed his arm, she held onto him as they walked behind the others, his face turned a light pink as she rest her head on his shoulder as they prepared for whatever happened next..


	11. Suigetsu VS Kisame!

The group followed after Sasuke walking for a bit before he sped up and started to run, Suki and Suigetsu broke apart and began to dash through the trees with the others. Karin blinked for a moment before speaking up, "There's a bunch of people with the same chakra all around us!" She felt the need to mention an important detail as they traveled, swiftly gliding through the trees with the occasional boost from jumping off a branch..

"What the hell is this?" She seemed a bit confused, Suigetsu decided to be the one to ask, "Should we take another route, Sasuke?" he drifted along carefully along-side the team, "Just ignore it. We'll keep moving forward." The uchiha spoke in a careless tone as always without even considering what they could be facing.. "Well thats good, detours always tire me out.." Suigetsu smiled, he was relieved he no longer had to carry Suki on his back, but the sword by itself almost seemed heavier, and maybe he even just a little bit missed having her always right there with him..

Suki smiled at the lazy male as they all carried onward deeper through the forest before a little mishap, someone had gotten in their path of travel.. It was a blonde haired boy wearing orange from what Suki saw, but before she could get close enough to get a good look at him Sasuke had already destroyed him with a small chidori blast. In a puff of smoke the male was gone, he had also been screaming 'Sasuke' quite dramatically..

"What was that?" Karin looked back and questioned whoever would answer, "A shadow clone." Suigetsu responded, "Naruto, huh?" Sasuke mumbled, "Multiple shadow clones.. I get it now." Karin said almost to herself, "The chakra I'm sensing all over the place is coming from them." She now understood and didn't let it bother her as they traveled on. By now they were out of the forest and onto some old building that looked abandoned, they all raced across its roof..

"What the..?" Karin's eyes widened, "There's an incredible chakra coming towards us, and fast!" She alerted the others, Suki already knew who it was from the feel around the air, but she kept quiet as the group came to a sliding stop when they were once again interrupted by someone in their path..

He was tall, holding a huge wrapped sword and wearing a familiar black and red clouded cloak.. Suki stopped and stood behind Suigetsu while the others stared at the strange man. "You're.." Suigetsu glared instantly after recognizing the male, the strange figure crouched down before them and spoke, "Sasuke-kun, if you would, please continue by yourself." He stood up, holding the massive blade over his shoulder. "Its Itachi-san's orders." He smiled casually at the group, "The rest of you, please wait here."

"No problem. The only reason I formed this team in the first place was to make sure that no one would interfere with me.. This works well" Sasuke instantly responded and trusted the man at hearing about Itachi, Karin though, felt differently.. "Sasuke, you can't! Let's just kick this guy's ass and go together!" She sounded way too confident for who she was talking about, Suki couldn't help but smile at that..

"I'm not really in the mood for a fight, but if you insist on going in together, I won't go easy on you." Kisame smiled as he spoke at the thought of these weaklings trying to take him on. "Karin, stay out of this. This is my revenge." Sasuke didn't turn to face her as he spoke, he simply ran on forward past Kisame to face his brother.. "Tch." Karin frowned and looked away, Suki then stepped out from behind Suigetsu to show herself, she threw her arm into the air and waved like a child, "HI KISAME-SAAAAAN!" She shouted happily.

"Oh? Suki-chan, I didn't expect to see you with these brats.." He smiled at the female, she returned the smile, "Ah, you know how weird these missions get sometimes." Her response made Karin give her a suspicious look again, Suigetsu was too focused on Kisame, or more so, on the Samehada to pay attention to the two talking..

"Hoshigaki Kisame... And the great sword, the Samehada.." Suigetsu smiled at the sight, Kisame's attention was snapped to the male, he raised an eyebrow at what the boy had just said, "Did you forget who I am?" Suigetsu spoke louder so the male could hear clearly. "I'm Houzuki Mangetsu's little brother, Houzuki Suigetsu." He made himself known in a way that Kisame would recognize, "Oh? I didn't recognize you.. You've really grown, Suigetsu." Kisame responded with a partial smile..

"You two know eachother? Well, this is going to be fun.." Suki giggled and sat down comfortably to watch what would happen next. "I don't really feel like sitting around here waiting for Sasuke to return.. Why don't we kill some time and have some fun, Kisame-senpai?" He spoke with confidence and a sharp-toothed smile as he reached over his back to grab ahold of his sword. "Unlike your brother, you're quite arrogant." Kisame responded and pull his blade in front of him as well. "Alright, I'll cut some layers off of you."

"Suigetsu, are you sure it's okay to go against Sasuke's orders?" Jugo questioned what was about to happen, Karin simply glared and kept her thoughts to herself. "Kisame, don't kill him." Suki suddenly glared at the shark-like male, he glanced over at her and smiled, "Fine, fine." He frowned, Suigetsu glared at Suki from the corner of his eye and mumbled something before lunging forward to swing at his enemy..

The two broke into a sword-fight, everyone watching calmly at the situation at hand, Karin and Jugo both eventually sat down to watch instead of stand the whole time.. The battle was fun to watch, and the every-now and then insults going back and forth were entertaining as well. The roof of the building shook a bit when Kisame decided to crash his sword into the ground to be a showoff, Suki had actually moved over a few inches from the shaking and watched the battle more closely..

Sadly there wasn't a whole lot to see after that because they had started to destroy the building sending rocks and clouds of dust into the air, Karin stood up and glared, "_Have some fun' _my ass.. They're really trying to kill each other!" She frowned while Suki simply giggled and watched, "Hey, Jugo, tell them-" She was cut off by his immediate response.. "Don't worry. The birds tell me that there's no one nearby that will interrupt their battle." He said as a cluster of the winged creatures flew around casually..

Karin groaned and thought about Sasuke for a bit while trying to focus her chakra sensing abilities. She noticed Konoha had stopped moving and began to wonder, but she figured it was a good thing and didn't mention it to the group.. Suki watched the two swordsmen fight, knowing Kisame probably had the upper hand, but not doubting Suigetsu having a chance to overpower him somehow..

The battle paused for a moment, Suki noticed the change in attitude they both had, she also noticed Suigetsu was about to find out a bit more about the Samehada. "My sword, Samehade, cuts and absorbs chakra.." Kisame stated bluntly, Suki already knew this from fighting Kisame before, he wasn't an easy opponent and she was lucky it was a friendly spar- or she might have been dead back then..

The fight had been going on for awhile now, Suki had drifted in and out of mini flashbacks a few times- memories of Itachi mostly, she didn't know how the fight would end, but she had a pretty good guess.. Before the group knew it the sky bad begun to grow dark, it was getting late plus a storm was collecting in the sky. Suki wondered silently to herself if this had anything to do with Sasuke and Itachi's battle..

Something caught everyones attention, a familiar voice for Kisame and Suki, but a strange one for the others.. They looked off to the side to see something growing up from the ground, it looked like a venus fly trap and spoke with a raspy voice, "You're out of time to kill." It said to get everyones attention. "Zetsu.." Kisame mumbled and placed his sword onto his back again, "I wasn't just killing time you know.." Suigetsu mumbled and did the same with his sword as the battle was now over..

"Hello, Suki-chan." The nice sounding side of the plant-like male said with a slight smile, Suki nodded a hello to her friend and got lost in her thoughts again as she looked off to the side sadly.. "So it's over?" Kisame questioned the plant-like male, "Yeah, it's finished." Another voice came from the same person, Suki stood up quickly to listen to the news, everyone got quiet at the same time to listen actually, they all stepped closer to Zetsu, "What about Sasuke?" Karin questioned with concern in her voice, Zetsu turned to her, "He's safe. Sasuke won." He responded, everyone sighed with relief aside from Suki and Kisame..

Suki looked up at the sky for a minute with a smile before paying attention to Zetsu and the others again, "Then.. Where is he?" Karin continued to question to get information, the rougher-voice of Zetsu answered this time, "He was immediately evacuated to a secure location." Karin blinked, "Secure location?" Zetsu again replied to her implied question, "Akatsuki's hideout to the east.. You guys should head over there too. Soon, Konoha will be crawling all over this area."

"Let's go.. To where Sasuke is." Jugo spoke up, Karin and Suigetsu nodded in response, "What will you do, Kisame?" Zetsu questioned the other male, Suki just standing there the entire time quietly contemplating to herself and collecting her memories. "With Itachi-san dead, I'll just go and spread my wings a little." The shark-like male replied blankly, "I see, if thats what you want." A softer voiced-zetsu replied before slowly closing and sinking into the ground again to return to Madara..

"Suki.. Can you take us to the eastern hideout?" Karin asked the female, she got no responce and angrily repeated the question, "SUKI, WHERE IS THE EASTERN HIDEOUT?" She shouted, Suki snapped back to reality and shook her head around for a bit, "Y-Yeah, Kisame, are you going to come with us?" She turned to the other male, he shook his head, "I'll meet you guys there, but I have some other things to do first." He was about to turn and leave when Suigetsu growled, "This isn't over." Kisame ignored this and began to walk off in another direction..

"Well then.. I'll take you to the eastern hideout, Karin, alert us if Konoha gets too close and we'll change paths." Suki nodded her head to the group before sprinting off towards the hideout, the group followed after her, everyone lost in their own thoughts and silent. Karin wondered about Sasuke's condition, Jugo was thinking the same, Suigetsu was still stuck on his battle with Kisame and Suki was bottling up emotions about Itachi being dead..

"_He's dead.. Everyone is slowly dying.. What's left of our group? And what's going to happen next?.." _Her emerald eyes shut for a moment while she cleared her mind of the thoughts clouding her, her eyes opened widely again as she sped up, everyone now struggled to keep up with her, "Slow the fuck down!" Karin finally yelled, Suki returned to the normal run instead of a sprint and ran along with the group following after.. They didn' t have much farther to go, and Karin was supposed to be keeping watch..

After a short bit more of silent travel they had reached the cavern, Suki came to a sliding stop along with the others behind her, she looked around for a bit before finding the entrance, it was a small doorway cut into the side of what looked like a rocky cliffside. She walked in casually and went down a few hallways before stopping in front of a specific door.

She knocked twice, a short pause happened and the door opened, out stepped the masked man they were familiar with. "Sasuke is getting dressed, he'll be out in a minute, lets step outside and talk." Madara shut the door behind him and lead the group outside. They all stepped into the chilly air caused by the ocean breeze and watched as the sun began to set off the coastline. Everyone eventually found a place to sit on the rocks and just enjoyed the view until Sasuke came outside without a word..

Everyone could see he was fine, so nobody asked questions, he wondered over to the edge of the cliff and stood on one of the rocks- staring out at the sea quietly. To the others he was quiet, the loud crashing waves of the ocean masked his sobbing for a bit. Everybody was silent for the longest time, until Sasuke began to speak again..

"We've shed the name Hebi.. From now on, we will act under the name, Taka." He paused slightly, everyone listened intently over the sound of the ocean waves, "Taka has but one goal.. We will.. Crush Konoha." His voice had changed, he sounded not angry- but determined, nobody was sure if this was a good thing or not. Everyone just silently nodded in acceptance of these new terms, Suki looked over at Madara with a questioning expression, he said nothing, which usually meant he would explain later..


	12. The Meeting

The group relaxed out there for a bit before going inside, Suki showed them to their own rooms which they could sleep in, She helped everyone with showing them around and such while Madara spoke to Sasuke outside. Suki wondered out there just as Madara was leaving, She motioned for Sasuke to follow her, he nodded and followed the female back inside to what looked like a large meeting room..

Suigetsu and the others were already inside, Sasuke took a seat at the only chair just as Madara entered the room with Kisame. Everyone was staring at eachother quietly awaiting the 'meeting' to start, "We, Taka, Will destroy Konoha." Sasuke began speaking.. Madara jumped up and sat on the table, "You can say it all you want, but how do you plan on accomplishing that?" He questioned..

"My targets are the Elders." Sasuke spoke directly to Madara, leaving everyone else in the room just there to listen, "I couldn't care less about anyone else." Sasuke continued, "If you target a king, his soldiers will be there to defend him, It won't be that easy." Kisame jumped into the discussion, "Plus, your little Taka group doesn't seem strong enough anyway." He added insult to injury as he spoke, which pissed off Suigetsu, " Kisame-senpai, I wouldn't underestimate us if I were you.. Our little game from before still isn't finished.." He spoke with a serious tone, Suki's attention was brought to this as she looked up..

"I'll get serious this time." He spoke again, "Stop it, Suigetsu!" Jugo didn't want this simple meeting to get out of hand, Kisame smirked at the violet-eyed male just as he jumped up and slid across the table to swing his sword at his enemy- he was shocked as ever to see Madara stop it quickly with just the back of his hand. Suki wasn't surprised, but she did roll her eyes and glare at Suigetsu for speaking out of term, and then this..

"Sasuke.. Teach your men some discipline." Madara snarled angrily, Suigetsu was shocked still, Sasuke glared and Karin began her bitching.. "Suigetsu, you fucking idiot! This isn't the place for that!" She fixed her glasses as Suigetsu began to get irritated and snapped back at her, "My only goal is getting that Samehade! The only reason I joined up with Sasuke was to get it!" He glared at the female while Jugo spoke up, "Sasuke, what're you gonna do?" He brought the conversation back on topic finally..

"Fine. Do as you please, Suigetsu." Sasuke responded, "You probably can't beat him yet anyway." Kisame began to chuckle at Sasuke's use of the word _'yet'_.. Suigetsu half smiled, "Oh, don't say that, Sasuke.. But just you wait. One of these days, I'll definitely treat you to some delicious shark fin soup!" He made a crack at Kisame's shark-like appearance as he smiled at the male. Suki placed her forehead in her hands and sighed..

"Akatsuki's also lacking in manpower as of now, so let us refrain from any unnecessary skirmishes." Madara addressed what Suki had been thinking all along, "Then you shouldn't be looking down on others." Suigetsu smirked, Madara was becoming irritated, Suki could tell through the tone of his voice.. "Our goals coincide, That's why Taka will cooperate with Akatsuki from now on." He said bluntly, Sasuke's attention was raised..

"And what do we get out of this?" Sasuke questioned the masked male, Suki began to wonder if this meant she would be continuing to work with Taka or stay as Zetsu's partner.. Madara turned to sasuke to respond, he then began to explain the Bijuu and the Tailed beasts and such. The conversation about them broke out and Suki slowly tuned out and didn't listen, it was nothing related to her anyway, her attention was snapped back suddenly when Madara spoke differently again..

"If you betray the Akatsuki, I'll have you killed." He said sternly, Suki knew this would probably be at her own hands, or perhaps by Madara himself. She hoped she wouldn't have to, even though this was just a mission, she would admit she had grown rather attached to this group, Jugo was quiet but nice to have around, Princess, AKA Karin, was entertainment.. And well, Suigetsu was..

Her thoughts were shattered by Kisame talking, she didn't exactly hear what he said but it was more about the Tailed beasts, she tuned out of the conversation again until Madara turned towards her as if he was going to speak. "Suki, you will continue to stay with Taka as ordered, however, do not interfere with the capturing of the beast unless completely necessary, it is their job only.. Also, Taka, The beast must be brought back alive." He ordered, Suki nodded without a word as the meeting was then declared over.

Everyone was tired now, it was late, and they all needed rest.. They all began to retreat to their rooms, Kisame stopped Suki and pulled her off to the side to talk to her. "How long did you know about _Tobi_?" He questioned, she shrugged, "A while now, I don't know exactly when.." He seemed satisfied with her answer and pat her on the head, he ruffled her hair a bit which made her glare, "Also, keep an eye on your damn boyfriend, I don't want him waking me up trying to kill me or something.. Heheheh.." Kisame chuckled a bit and teased Suki, but at the same time he was serious.

"Alright, alright.." She yawned and left the room to go down the hallway to where she would usually sleep, she stopped outside another door though and walked straight in, she grabbed Suigetsu by the back of the shirt and dragged him into her room before shutting the door behind her. "Hey!" He stared at her blankly wondering what the hell she was doing, he looked around for a bit and relaxed seeing that it was just a normal room.

It was actually a bit larger than the room he was showed to earlier, and it was a bit more comfortable seeing as how there was a giant pile of who-the-hell-needs-this-many pillows and a few pictures tacked onto the walls along with two dressers on one side of the room. He figured this must be Suki's room in the eastern base, by now he had figured out the whole Akatsuki thing so he didn't even bother questioning it, he was too tired anyway- it had been a really long day..

"I have to keep an eye on you so you don't try to kill Kisame-san, and apparently I'm going with you guys to go after the eight tails~!" She smiled and sat down on her bed, it wasn't really a normal bed but more like a soft mat placed on the floor like in most hotels. "I'm not going to attack him while he sleeps, that would be cowardly, I want to enjoy the battle and take the sword rightfully." Suigetsu spoke with pride, Suki smiled at his little dream and lay down on her back to stare at the roof..

Suigetsu crawled over to her and lay by her side, also staring at the roof blankly, the two got silent for a moment before Suki spoke up, "What was that thing you wanted to ask me about before?" she rolled onto her side and propped her head up against her fist on her elbow, he did the same and stared at her for a moment before remembering, "OH.. That, uh.. Its nothing." He rolled back onto his back and avoided answering, which made her more suspicious than before..

"Alright, alright I wont bug you about it." Suki took the hint with a slight smile and turned over to face the wall, before she knew it her eyes had already shut and she drifted off to sleep.. She didn't know how long it had been, but much too soon she felt- that she was then woken up by a familiar kick to the ribs. "Ack, What the hell?" She mumbled and rubbed at her eyes, but before she could react she was grabbed by the shirt and tugged out of the room..

Any normal person would be kicking and screaming if something like this happened, but Suki had actually gotten used to waking up like this, she just had to figure out who it was this time- and judging by the black gloves, it was Madara. He drug her all the way down the hall to the meeting room from before and set her down, he then took a comfortable seat at the end of the table and began to act casual again. "Good morning."

"_Good morning_ my ass, you got that rib-kicking thing from Deidara, didn't you?" The female growled and stood up, she stumbled over to the table and flopped down onto it, laying her back on the cold stone and staring at the plain roof. "Its a shame, he was a fine fighter and member, wasn't he.." Madara propped his feet up on the table and leaned back with his arms behind his head, a very relaxed pose to start off the morning. "Is that all you care about is him being a good fighter? God, your not even upset at the loss of a good friend!" Suki snapped at him, to which he was shocked a bit.

"Deidara knew _Tobi_, therefor he didn't know me.. I couldn't consider someone who doesn't know me- as a friend." He spoke with a cold tone, Suki simply sighed and shut her eyes out of wanting to both tune out the world- and go back to sleep, but she was woken up again by the shadowy figure of the male hovering at her side. "I consider you a friend, Suki-chan." He suddenly spoke in the high-pitched happy voice that the character _Tobi_ normally used..

"Tobi is one of my best friends, but is Madara?" She gazed upward, the orange swirl staring back at her menacingly while he paused to answer her. "I've grown rather attached to you, as well as some others from this organization, I'll admit it, I've made friends with those I once referred to as pawns in my plan." His voice has returned to normal as he sat on the stone table calmly to remember all the times he had in the Akatsuki..

One particular memory stood out, back when Suki was a young, stupid teenager and would blab on non-stop during missions, which would annoy deidara to death.. On one occasion the two were on a mission with Zetsu when Suki began to babble on about _'Madara Uchiha's Sexy Hair'_, at the time Suki didn't know about the whole _Tobi-Madara_ thing, so it was just a completely awkward yet comical day.. His attention was snapped back at the sound of her voice speaking up again as he listened intently..

"Its been a good run, hasn't it? We've come so far in this group.. For me it only started as Sasori-Sensei's club.. Then when you invited me to join and I found out everything, the plans, the tailed-beasts, I was scared.. Eventually I made friends, the people some refer to as cold heartless killers were some of the greatest people I've ever met.. But now things have come down to this, we're starting a war and more than half of us are gone.." Suki paused, she looked down for a moment and looked a bit sad..

"Suki-" He barely could begin to speak before she continued, "Well, we've come pretty damn far, can't give up now.. And just so you know, Tobi, or shall I call you, Madara.. I'm with you all the way, even if your dead wrong, I'll be at your side." She suddenly smiled and stood up off the table, the male blinked behind his mask and watched the female through the small eye-hole cut in the orange swirl. "Hm.." The male mumbled, a smile behind his mask that the female couldn't see, "It's what friends are for." She sat back down casually and began kicking her feet at the floor..

"Even if I asked you for something you would refuse?" He began to get curious on just how far this 'friendship' could bend before it would break, a sadistic smile slowly grew across his lips behind the orange mask. Her eyebrow perked up as she turned to face him, her head tilted so the side slightly in question as she answered. "I told you, I'm with you all the way on this, on anything."

"You do realize we are waging war on the hidden leaf, and all other shinobi villages?" His voice had a menacing tone which sent shivers up her spine, "Just what are you getting at?" Her glance narrowed to a slight glare as she spoke, "You're from the leaf, am I correct? Maybe not you specifically, but your family.." He leaned forward slightly, Suki could feel her entire body begin to tense up, each muscle almost aching with nervousness that she couldn't explain. "And your little brother.. What if I asked you to kill him?"


	13. Memories and Nail Polish

"W-What?" Suki shivered, her entire body felt like it was going to go numb, the one thing a sibling never wanted to hear had just escaped the lips of the male next to her. Her heart felt as if it had stopped, everything almost slowed down to a stop and the room began to spin, the thought of the only piece of her family she still cared about- the thought of him dying, at her own hands..

"Could you kill your little Kiba-kun? Could you slaughter your little brother, for me?" He brought his face closer to hers, he was leaning over her shoulder with his mask almost pressing to her cheek- the small eyehole with a bright red sharingan glowing through. His voice was almost at a whisper, he tried to hold back a sadistic laugh while Suki's head dropped, her hair covered her face and she went silent..

"Are you comparing me to yourself, or are you comparing me to Itachi?.. Izuna gave his life for a reason, and Itachi protected Sasuke with everything.. How do you think the scene will play out?" Her voice went low, it was haunting to Madara's ears, he had expected the weak little girl he once knew to break into tears and beg for mercy.. Instead she had reacted how he secretly wanted- she was showing her strength, she really had grown over the years, and seen her fair share of death..

Before he could back away her head jolted back up, she turned to face him and stared emotionlessly through the small hole- emerald orbs piercing the terrifying sharingan, almost like a staring contest before someone caved. Madara began to chuckle, he backed away and stared upward, "If it had been anyone else speaking of my brother in such a way I would've had them killed.. You've really grown, Suki.. It's no surprise my eyes don't scare you like they once did, it seems like the aspect of fear wont work to control you anymore."

The female turned back around to where her face couldn't be seen by him, she was bluffing like hell- the one thing she knew how to do better than any of them, her insides were still twisting and turning, she had knots in her stomach and wanted to cry; but not now, not in front of him.. "It never did, Tobi. I obey your orders because your my friend, I put trust into this organization, even when I don't always agree with what we're doing." Her voice sounded weak- it was obvious she was trying to keep her cool.

"I'm just letting you know ahead of time, if he does become a problem, I'll at least be respectful enough to let you be the one to make sure he goes out without pain." He spoke in reference to the Kiba-thing, Suki shut her eyes and let out a deep sigh- her memories began to flash before her as if she were watching them on a movie screen..

"HEY! SIS!" The boy shouted, his short brown hair shook in the wind as he excitedly waved, awaiting the approaching traveler to come closer. "Damn! You've gotten taller!" The female called out and began to run towards the boy as soon as she saw him, the two met each other in the middle and clung to one-another in a tight hug. "So tell me all about it, how're you doing in school, any cute girls?" She began to question him almost instantly after they broke away from the hug..

"Hold up woman I'll tell you everything, we just need to get out of here, if mom sees you she'll flip.. Come on, we can go to the training grounds!" The male smiled, his sharp teeth matched that of the females as the two began walking off towards their destination. Slowly but surely he began walking faster, then she sped up, and they repeated this a few times until they were both running their hearts out in a race to get there sooner.

"You've gotten faster too!" Suki yelled, the male smirked and ran ahead of her, "Come on sis, keep up~!" He chuckled, Suki glared, "But your still a brat!" She shouted as the two continued to race through the village- knocking over a few people and running into a fruit-stand or two, both tripping, laughing and continuing to go forward until they had reached the edge of the training grounds..

Panting and smiling, the two found a shady spot under a tree and both fell over, staring up at the sky and catching their breath. "So," Suki huffed, "Tell me everything now?" she smiled and awaited his response, the boy began telling her every little detail- the kids from school, what was going on, how Akamaru was at the vet with Hana right now, and about some cute girl he had run into..

All the while Suki smiled, she loved spending time with her younger brother, something about it just felt so right- so peaceful, Kiba was always fun to be around, and even though they hardly got to see eachother- they were pretty damn close siblings. "So wait, you guys graduate tomorrow and get put into ninja-teams? Haha, sweet, who do you want on your team?" She smiled and sat up, resting her back against the tree and listening to her brother complain about possibly getting stuck with a bunch of 'weaklings that would drag him down'..

"Come on, be positive, maybe you'll get put on a team with that cute girl, what was her name.. Hina.. Hinata or something?" Suki smiled wide at her brother's now blushing face, "Y-Yeah, maybe, I guess.. B-But anyway! Tell me what's going on with YOU!" The male rolled onto his stomach and looked up at his sister with curiosity, Suki shook her head awkwardly, "Ehh, I'm not exactly involved in the best kind of things right now, Kiba.. Thats why I probably wont be able to visit as much.." She looked sad for a moment, Kiba sighed and looked up at the sky.

"I promise, I'll try to come as often as possible!" Suki tried to reassure him, "Why can't you and mom just get along? I mean even Hana doesn't mind you THAT much.." He sighed, Suki rolled her eyes, "Last time I saw her she threw a hot frying pan at me, we're not exactly the best sisters to eachother.." She chuckled, Kiba laughed at the memory, "Yeah well, I'm your best brother, right?" He looked hopeful, Suki crossed her arms over her chest and pouted, "Well, if thats my only option.."

Kiba snarled, "What!" Suki began to laugh, "Yes, your the best brother! I'm kidding, god, you have the same temper as mom!" The two began to laugh together- just genuinely enjoying each others company and the day ahead of them, Kiba planned out an entire day of avoiding their family and just having fun, and so the day began- the two of them went all out, having the time of their lives and trying to make a few hours last forever..

The sun was now beginning to set, the sky was a mix of gold and purple- the night sky clashing with the remaining light of the sun. The two siblings sat on top of a roof both eating dangos and watching the sky change colors slowly. "I'll have to leave soon.." Suki sighed, Kiba gulped down a mouthful of food before turning to her with a frown plastered across his innocent face. "Really? When will the next visit be?" He questioned and set an empty dango stick down on the plate between them..

"I don't know.. But you better get stronger next time! In fact, I challenge you to a fight!" Suki tried to brighten up the mood a bit, Kiba smirked at her offer and held out his hand to shake hers, "Deal, prepare to get your ass kicked by your little brother, though! I'm gonna be so much stronger, and taller!" Suki grabbed his hand and shook it roughly- hurting the boy's wrist just a bit, he winced while she laughed.

"Wait, wait wait! I almost forgot! Wait here, don't leave yet okay? I'll be RIGHT back!" He suddenly jumped up, Suki was left sitting there alone wondering if she had time to wait- the sun was almost all the way down and the air began to get chilly as the boy took off running. The thought of leaving finally hit her, one single tear escaped and ran down her cheek- she wiped it away before it could get any farther and sighed..

It couldn't have been more than a few minutes before he returned, the sun was now gone and the night sky had taken over- being scattered with brightly shining stars. "Suki, take this with you, I know you travel a lot and its probably cold.. You need this more than me, I've got a million of them!" He smiled and held something out to her, it was a black hooded-jacket that looked brand-new, Suki blinked and smiled as she took it from him.

"Where did you get this? Don't tell me you bought this for me, I thought you were saving up money to get those ninja tools you talked about earlier.." She frowned for a moment, but couldn't help but smile at the thought he put into it, "Actually I'm not that thoughtful, mom bought me this yesterday but its too big, she was gonna take it back but I'll just say I lost it.. You can have it!" He smiled widely and watched as she unzipped and slid the jacket on with a smile, "Don't go getting yourself in trouble because of me.. But, thanks."

Another tear slid down her cheek that she didn't care enough to bother with as she grabbed her brother in a tight hug, he wiggled a bit and hugged her back hesitantly, "Uhg, come on don't get all mushy on me!" Suki laughed and let go, the two stood there silently before giving a simple nod- knowing it was time they go separate ways once more..

"Suki?... Suki?... Suki!" Madara finally smacked the female in the back of the head to get her attention, her eyes shot open and suddenly she was back in the present- the memory faded back into the confines of her mind. "What?" She finally responded, "I see your just a bit mentally unstable from that, I'll leave you alone for now.." Madara backed away to leave the room, he stopped in the door and whispered something that Suki didn't quite understand- Did he just say sorry? Regardless if he did or not, she accepted the apology.

Silently she stood up, she began a slow- almost mechanical walk back to her room where she poked her head in the doorway, Suigetsu still lay sprawled out on the floor sleeping soundly. "So.. Cute.." Suki squealed in her mind, she couldn't help having just a tiny bit of a girly side when it came to him. It wasn't very often that she came across a male who could so easily go from being a hot mess to the cutest little _I-want-to-hug-it-now_ thing ever..

While Suki was distracted gazing at Suigetsu like a stalker she didn't notice someone had come up behind her and was now almost breathing down her neck, "Whacha doin?" The gruff male's voice rang in her ears and scared the living hell out of her- causing her to fall backwards onto her ass- "WHAT THE FU-.. Oh.. Fuck, Zetsu, don't do that!" She caught her breath and shook a fist at the plant-like male now standing above her trying not to laugh..

"Well I was going to ask you to help me with something but you're obviously busy drooling over your boyfriend, I guess I'll ask that Karin-girl.." He smiled teasingly, Suki jumped up with a growl, "Hell no, this has been my favorite job for years and your gonna replace me with HER!.. A-And I'm not drooling over him! Shit, I was.. Just.. FUCK, JUST COME ON." She stormed down the hallway with the male following her, laughing like he hadn't in months..

The two went down the hall to another room, then out the backdoor into the warm outside, the fresh air was nice for Suki, and the sun was pleasing to the plant-like male as well. The two found their usual spot in the midst of what looked like a small garden with a flat rock in the middle where the two sat down casually and relaxed in the sun for a bit..

"Alright, what colors did you bring this time?" Suki's eyes suddenly lit up at her favorite job of them all, every now and then her and Zetsu would get together and paint their nails- as odd as it was, they both enjoyed it because it was so carefree and stress relieving.. Usually _'Tobi'_ would join them, but since things had gotten busier and he had become _'Madara'_, it was rare that he would join them anymore..

"Well, I thought I'd try something different, and for you, your favorite~!" Zetsu reached into his cloak and pulled out two small bottles of polish, one was bright pink and the other was plain white. Suki happily grabbed the two containers and frowned a bit, "You've gotta be kidding me.. You want to paint your nails pink?" She shook the bottles gently to mix the polish inside, Zetsu shrugged a bit, "I said I'll try something different.." He smiled innocently, Suki began to laugh and shook her head, "Alright, alright pinkie, hold out your hands."

The two sat together happily and painted their nails, they talked while they did so, Suki began to vent to Zetsu about Madara and her talk about Kiba, Zetsu nodded and listened with a smile. Despite his strange appearance and attitude most of the time, Zetsu was actually quite a nice gentleman and the best friend to Suki..

They had been partners for a while now, at first they didn't get along- but being stuck with eachother soon developed into being friends. Zetsu was calm, a good listener and a deep thinker, while Suki was hyperactive, a good talker and had plenty of opinions. The two went well together, and they also worked nicely on missions because Zetsu was the best spy- and Suki wasn't recognized as a part of the Akatsuki, so she could be out in the open and nobody would know; plus this gave Suki more chances to get into the leaf village and see her brother..

The two continued to laugh and talk until they were interrupted by someone running towards them squealing like a child- it took them both a few seconds to understand what the hell was going on before they realized it was Madara all happily jumping around like he used to when he was _'Tobi'_.. Suki blinked and frowned, she was still a bit irritated with him but couldn't help but smile at the carefree and joyful 'Tobi'.

"SUKI-CHAAAAAAN, ZETSU-SAAANN, I wanna join, I wanna join! Can you paint my nails tooooo!" He squealed in a high-voice, Zetsu and Suki both smiled and let him join, he pulled a small container of blue polish out of his jacket and handed it to Suki- who carefully began to paint his fingernails and toenails while letting hers and Zetsu's dry.. "Suki-chan.. Can we? Can we? Can we?" Tobi squirmed around frantically, Suki sighed fakely before jumping up and standing a few feet away and smiling, "Duh!"

Tobi and Suki both suddenly started running around in circles waving their hands- Zetsu facepalmed at the retardedness of the situation- but he smiled and gently shook his hands as well. The two frantically ran around waving their arms in the air- the reason for this was to dry their nails- but the REAL reason was because it was just plain fun.. After ten minutes of solid and pure stupidity the two both fell over on the ground and began to pant to catch their breath, their nails had dried and the colors looked bright and shiny in the morning sunlight..

"What.. The hell.. THIS is the big-scary-evil-organization we're working with?" Karin had been watching from the doorway with a shocked face the entire time, she sighed and was about to go outside and scream at them, but instead noticed Sasuke was awake and just came out of his room- she quickly pranced down the hallway to greet him while the others were just starting to wake up from the loud screaming of the two morons outside..

Suigetsu yawned and sat up, he looked around and noticed Suki wasn't at his side anymore- in fact it sounded like it was her that was outside screaming like a dying bird with someone else. He was curious and awake, he figured he might as well go outside and see what's up, he slowly got up and rubbed his eyes before finding his way outside and watching what the hell was going on..

He wandered down the hallway past Karin stalking Sasuke and Jugo joined him in walking outside, he stood in the doorway and looked outside- he frowned with jealousy and didn't exactly like what he saw.. Suki looked as if she was cuddled up leaning against Zetsu while Madara was doing something with her feet, Suigetsu stomped outside with a glare, "What the hell is this?" Jugo followed after him with a sigh expecting a slight fight to happen..

"S-Suigetsu! Good morning, when did you get up?" Suki sat up with a smile, Tobi had just finished painting her toenails and was screwing the lid onto the polish when the two began their mini argument. "I just got up, what the hell is going on here?" he glared at Zetsu, who looked a bit confused at this point, "Why do you sound so pissed, we're painting our nails.." Suki began to get defensive, she didn't like his attitude or his anger towards something so innocent..

"_Painting your nails?_" He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at her, Suki stood up and stepped towards him with a snarl, before she could speak Zetsu put in his two cents- "Your a bit defensive of your girlfriend, aren't you?" He smiled and leaned back a bit, Suigetsu looked over Suki's shoulder with a glare, "I'm not, just wondering what the hell was going on with this, it just looked odd, alright?" He sighed and blushed a bit at Zetsu calling Suki his girlfriend, Suki smiled proudly, "So I AM your girlfriend now, eh?"

His face lit up bright red as he turned around and began to walk back towards the building, "I'm hungry.." He avoided the subject, Suki simply laughed and jumped onto his back while he walked- Zetsu and Madara looked at each other and shook their heads, "She seems really happy again, like she used to be.." Zetsu watched the couple fight eachother to get in the doorway first.

Madara stopped the 'Tobi' act again and sat casually as the other-half of Zetsu spoke.. "Yeah, its sad to say but if she continued that depression about Sasori she might have been useless to us eventually." Tobi turned to face Zetsu and shook his head, "No, even if she was in a complete state of depression- or even on her deathbed, she would not only be of use to us, but a friend that we can't abandon." His words shocked Zetsu, had something changed Madara? But he ultimately nodded in agreement about Suki being a friend to them both..


End file.
